Overstimulation Is RUINING Your Life - Daily Habits To Take Back Control Of Your Focus! | Jim Kwik

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 Many people these days are complaining that they can't focus

Jim Kwik 0:06 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:06 ... they're struggling with their memory. They, they just can't pay attention-

Jim Kwik 0:10 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:10 ... in a way that they used to. So in your view, what's going on?

Jim Kwik 0:15 Yeah, I mean, the world has, has changed, certainly. Uh, technology, and I'm pretty pro-technology. It also, it, it maybe hasn't caused it, but it certainly has amplified some of that distraction, that digital distraction. I mean, we live in an age of rings and pings and dings and app notifications, social media alerts, and, uh, just I feel like in a way that we're driven to be distracted, and how do you maintain your concentration? Which is so important nowadays. You know, we live in the attention economy. And, um, you know, but we're rewiring our brains to, to react, uh, and to be able to, to focus at every little thing that's, that's in our purview. And so, um, and how are you gonna get things done? How are you gonna learn? How are you gonna study? How are you gonna be productive? Um, you know, in the book, in my book Limitless, I talk about four digital, um... It's like the four horsemen, if you will, of the mental apocalypse, and I, I tend to alliterate, so I made them all Ds. Uh, the first one actually is digital distraction. You know, is, uh, is, you know, with, uh, with the rise of technology and everybody like and share and comment and cat video, and then we get those dopamine hits. We're kind of getting rewired to be distracted. Another one that's, that we're facing that people I think are, are struggling with right now is this thing called digital deluge. It's feel like, uh, there's too much information-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29 Mm

Jim Kwik 1:29 ... but not enough time to go through it all. It's feels-- Some people describe it as taking a sip of water out of a fire hose maybe, or they're drowning in information, and how do you catch up and keep up and get ahead? And some of the things we could talk about here is I talk about accelerated learning, which I think is one of the most important skills to be able to, uh, to master in the 21st century, to be able, to, to be able to, uh, to catch up and, and really, really thrive. Um, accel- uh, accelerated learning could also im- im- uh, be, uh, speed reading. You know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:59 ... we could, you know, you have so much to read, you know, this, you know, in, in your field, and the amount, the half-life information is getting shorter and shorter, but the amount of information is coming at dizzying speed. But how we read it or learn it, that growing gap creates, uh, information anxiety, higher blood pressure, compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness. So it could be a big, big challenge for people. Um, and then there's one that, that I, I, I term digital deduction. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:24 Digital deduction.

Jim Kwik 2:25 Yeah. Just keep-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:26 That's the third one, right?

Jim Kwik 2:27 Yeah. Digital deduction, um... So y- you have, you have digital, uh, distraction and digital deluge. Digital deduction is this phenomenon where we-- s- seems like this generation's not having the same, uh, ability to, to think or to rationalize. You, you have applied logic, critical thinking. And, um, you know, it could be s- because of technology. You know, with algorithms, a lot of technology is doing the thinking for us, right? It's telling us, uh, you know, giving us our recommendation. It's telling us how to get from here to there. If you think about, you know, way back before GPS, you know, we would have to build visual-spatial intelligence in order for you able to get from here to there. But now we, we rely on our, on our devices, so we don't-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:09 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 3:10 ... have to think. So we're outsourcing that. And then a big one is digital dementia. I mean, think about that. We're, we're so reliant on technology to also be, like, our external memory, uh, drive. I mean, think about how many phone numbers y- you know, your audience, you and I used to know growing up. I mean, a lot, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:30 A lot, yeah.

Jim Kwik 3:31 Yeah. And how many do we know today? Current numbers. You know, probably could count on one hand. Maybe one, two, or three. Not that I wanna memorize 500 phone numbers, uh, but it should be s- concerning that a lot of people complain about not being able to memorize one, you know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:45 Yeah

Jim Kwik 3:45 ... a phone number or a pin number or a passcode or a seed phrase or what they ate that day or a conversation they just had. I believe two of the most costly words sometimes in our life, certainly in our work, are, "I forgot." I forgot to do it. I forgot to bring it. I forgot that meeting. I forgot that conversation. I forgot what I was gonna say. I forgot that person's name. You know, every single time we have those lapses, we could lose time and credibility. Uh, we could hurt a relationship.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:10 Those are two powerful words, aren't they? I forgot. It's interesting because it's clearly something that is increasing in society. People in their 30s now are saying, "You know, I just can't remember that. I can't remember where I put my keys."

Jim Kwik 4:25 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:25 Right? So-

Jim Kwik 4:26 Or something larger like their car.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:28 Or, or something larger like their car.

Jim Kwik 4:29 You see the people walking around the lot with their, with their car alarms, like GPS, trying to figure out where they parked their car.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:34 Yeah. So I, I wanna sort of explore what's going on here. You've mentioned these four Ds, right?

Jim Kwik 4:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:40 And of course, they all start with digital.

Jim Kwik 4:42 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:43 And you also mentioned that you're pro-technology, right? So it's not necessarily technology that's doing it. Maybe it's the way we're using that technology sometimes that's problematic. So, you know, let, let's, let's go through those one by one.

Jim Kwik 5:01 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:01 I know you've outlined them.

Jim Kwik 5:02 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:02 But digital distraction, I think we all kinda get that, that we can't focus 'cause we're just drawn to our smartphone, and we're just-- before we know it, we should be doing a work project-

Jim Kwik 5:13 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:14 ... but somehow we've ended up down a Twitter rabbit hole-

Jim Kwik 5:18 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:18 ... or, or we've been on Instagram for 10 minutes without even realizing it.

Jim Kwik 5:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:21 So what can we do about that?

Jim Kwik 5:23 Yeah. I mean, for me, technology is not necessarily good or bad. It's, uh, exactly what you said. It's how it's applied. Like fire is a form of technology, and fire could cook our food, or it could burn down our home, right? But you're right. It's how it's, it's how we're using it and as opposed to it using us, right? Technology is a tool for us to use, but if the, if technology's using us, then who becomes the tool? Then, then we become the tool, right? And so, you know, having agency, I think, is very important. The, the, a way of starting this conversation in terms of that we're not a, a victim, that we always are the pilot. We're the pilot of our lives, uh, instead of the passenger. We're the pilot of our minds. We're not the passenger. We don't have to just be reacting to it. You know, my, my challenge is when people pick up the phone out of boredom, right? I mean, you know this in terms of how many, how many times do people open up social media or touching their phone, or if it's at the table during a meal. You know, it creates that kind of unconscious anxiety that's there. It's just the impulse to be able to pick it up. And, uh, and so part of it is obviously controlling the, the environmental aspect of it and knowing that we always have a choice, right? There's, there's a quote in Limitless from, um- Uh, this French philosopher, and he says, "Life is the letter C between the letters B and D." Life is C between B and D. B is birth, D is death. Life, C, choice.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:41 Mm.

Jim Kwik 6:41 You know, we always have that choice, uh, every single day. We are-- Our lives i- in effect is, uh, the sum total of all the choices we made up to this point. You know, where are we gonna live? Who are we gonna spend time with? What are we gonna eat? Uh, what are we gonna do for a living? Uh, what are we gonna feed our mind? And, uh, you know, I'm also thinking that when it comes to choices, when, and the decisions that we make, I believe that even at a, at a meta level, that these difficult times, they could distract us. We're talking about distraction. It could diminish us, or these difficult times can actually develop us. We, we always decide, 'cause we always have choice. Every day we wake up with a, with a chance because we have choice, right? And, uh, and to take responsibility of it as opposed to putting it out there like something... You know, I al- I always use this metaphor that it's important for all of us to identify more with a thermostat than we do a thermometer. Meaning a thermometer, let's say a thermometer is in your room. What's its function? It just reacts to the environment. Whatever the environment gives it, it reacts. And as human beings, we are sometimes like that. We react to how people treat us. We, we can react to the weather. We can react to, uh, uh, the economy, uh, you know, all these different things. But ultimately, you know, you know this, you know, as you write about happiness. The, the, the, the people that are most fulfilled, happy, successful, they tend to not react as much, right? They tend to maintain more of their agency. A thermostat has that agency. A thermostat doesn't react to its environment. A thermostat, it knows the temperature. It gauges.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:11 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 8:12 Um, it has awareness. Uh, and though it sets a temperature, and what happens? The environment, the environment reacts to it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:19 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 8:19 Right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:20 No, I, I love that. And, you know, wh- when I've watched your videos online or listened to your podcast, I see a lot of shared philosophy.

Jim Kwik 8:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:31 I see a lot of things between us that we both like to talk about. And I know first thing in the morning is a very important time for you, as it is for me.

Jim Kwik 8:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:41 I really do passionately believe that the way we start the day determines so much of what happens later on in that day.

Jim Kwik 8:49 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:49 You know, if you start off consuming news, don't be surprised that you feel anxious, a bit frazzled, a bit negative about the world-

Jim Kwik 8:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 8:58 ... later on, because the way we feel is often downstream from what we're consuming.

Jim Kwik 9:03 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:04 And I know you're big on morning routines. You're big on not looking at your phone for a-

Jim Kwik 9:09 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:09 ... period of time in the morning. And if we use the analogy of the thermostat, I guess we get a chance every morning to set the thermostat on our life-

Jim Kwik 9:23 Yeah. Exactly

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:23 ... depending on what we do, right? So you're a brain coach.

Jim Kwik 9:26 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:27 You're a world-renowned brain coach. So to you, what does an ideal morning look like-

Jim Kwik 9:34 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:34 ... if we're thinking about the health of our brains?

Jim Kwik 9:36 And our, and specifically towards things like focus.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:38 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 9:38 To have better focus throughout the day. Yeah, I, I'm, I'm very intentional. And, and when, when I go through some of the things I talk about in my morning routine, I'm not suggesting it's for everybody. I don't think necessarily everything is for everybody or everybody's for everything. You know, I, I do ask people to maybe experiment. I think ultimately we are our best coach, and, uh, it's nice to have mentors and, and, and others and get their feedback. But, uh, to test it on themselves and then, you know, you know, e- everyone's situation's a little bit different, right? Some people work at night, you know, they're night workers, they have lots of kids and, and such. Uh, for, for me, when I wake up, my, my goal is, you know, while I do some of the biohacking people see on, on social media, you know, the, the, the cryotherapy and the, the saunas and all that, most of that I like to get nowadays from nature because it's free. Um, I feel like it's, it's very natural. Uh, it's very duplicatable, you know, for all of us. Um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:34 Is that when you spoke about recently, um, you'd like to get the four elements-

Jim Kwik 10:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:39 ... first thing in the morning?

Jim Kwik 10:40 I, I, I do. I do. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:41 That was beautiful.

Jim Kwik 10:42 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:42 Could, could you elaborate on that?

Jim Kwik 10:43 You know, I was, when I was, um, researching a- another book, I was, I was reading about the elements and how, you know, uh, ancient cultures like from, from Babylon and, and Babylonian times, they used to believe, and ancient Greeks, they used to believe everything was made up of these four elements.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:59 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 10:59 Air, fire, water, and earth. And I thought, "Wow, that's, that's, that's very beautiful." It sounds very natural and organic for me. And so for me, I like to infuse my day with those elements. You know, maybe first thing in the morning, and you could do it by going out and getting grounded. You know, I, I love taking off my shoes and, you know, being barefoot. Um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:17 You're barefoot now in the studio, as I am.

Jim Kwik 11:18 Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. And walking around your beaut- beautiful yard, and it's very peaceful. You get grounded and, you know, some people use biohacking like PEMF mats, you know, at certain frequencies. But, you know, I feel like all of those and, are meant to kind of imitate nature. Like the infrared, you know, the red lights is, imitate the, the sun and so on. So I'm going out there, I'm getting the dir- the direct sunlight, which is very important. You know, we, we know, uh, many people talk about getting, uh, direct sunlight first thing in the morning to reset your circadian rhythm to help you sleep better at night. So that's the fire for me, and I have the earth. Uh, I hydrate, uh, because we could lose a good amount of water through when we sleep, through respiration-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:56 Yeah

Jim Kwik 11:56 ... and perspiration and, you know, uh, just staying hydrated could boost your reaction time, your thinking speed upwards of, of thirty percent. I mean, it's a huge, not, not a small boost, but a huge lift.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:07 So how much do you drink each morning?

Jim Kwik 12:08 Yeah. For, for me, it's a little different. Um, each... I always go by, like, how I feel and, you know, also that's dictated by the night before, just like, uh, getting a good night's sleep is dictated by how you start the day also as, as well. I do some electrolytes. That, that really works well for me, the, the salts and, and the minerals. Uh, you know, a g- a nice tall glass works for me.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:28 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 12:28 Usually room temperature. It just kind of like, that's my personal thing. And then, um, and then the last one is air, and that's just doing some breathing exercises.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:36 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 12:36 You know, sometimes people feel sedated or they, when they're reading, they fall asleep or, uh, they feel like they have that, that mental fatigue. And I feel like a lot of times it's just 'cause we're not getting enough air. I mean, sometimes we have to just even check our posture when we're at our desk because sometimes when you collapse your diaphragm, the lower one-third of your lungs could absorb two-thirds of the oxygen. So, you know, it's really important to get that blood flow and that oxygen to, to where it really matters. So those are the kind of things I do. But intentionally, what I'm thinking about in the morning is I do this, and I've done this for the longest time. I do these thought experiments, you know, where I'm... I, I just, I'm gonna imagine myself at the end of the day. I could do this in bed or I could do this outside. I can imagine a family member asking at the end of the day, "How was your day?" And I was like, "Today was really great. You know, I'm very blessed. You know, I crushed it today." Something like that. And then I ask myself, if that's what I say Then what had to happen in order for me to feel that way? And I work backwards. I kind of reverse engineer it, meaning, like, I think about three things personally and three things maybe, uh, professionally that happened. And they don't have to be huge, big things, but that's where I kind of put my focus and my intention. I kind of work backwards. I was like, "Okay, if I do this, you know, if I have this, this conversation with you, you know, that, that's a, that's a big check mark for me and that'll make me happy." You know, if I walk the dogs, you know, or play with my son or I do these, as you know, s- do specific activities, that, that's a win. So I work backwards from that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:01 Yeah. You mentioned before about being the pilot-

Jim Kwik 14:04 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:05 ... right? Rather than a passenger. And I, I really like that practice where, yeah, you've mentioned the four elements.

Jim Kwik 14:13 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:13 Completely get that. Can see how that'll be a very, well, literally a way to ground at the start of the day, root yourself, give yourself the kind of core ingredients that-

Jim Kwik 14:24 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:25 ... a healthy human needs each morning, right?

Jim Kwik 14:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:28 But I really like that exercise where you fast-forward to the end of the day and almost-

Jim Kwik 14:34 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:34 ... visualize saying to yourself, "That was a great day."

Jim Kwik 14:38 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:38 And so what do I need to do to make that a great day? I think that's a really nice practice, and can you give an example maybe or, or how does this change things because, you know, does it automatically change the way you approach the day? Are you thinking about things you have to have done or are you also thinking about things like, you know, when I see my work colleagues, I wanna be-

Jim Kwik 15:03 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:03 ... calm, I wanna be present, I don't wanna be snapping at anyone, I want to-

Jim Kwik 15:07 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:07 You know, what, what sorts of things are you thinking about? Actions, behaviors, bit of both?

Jim Kwik 15:12 Yeah. Yeah, and I've, I've done both and/or created a composite. I think to-do lists, most people listening have some form of to-do list way of tracking the tasks that they have to check off. Um, I think it's important also have a, a to-be list. It kinda maybe sounds a little, little corny, uh, but a to-be list, it's, you know, the whole idea we're n- we're not human doings, we're human beings. But, you know, when we're faced with a decision or dilemma, you know, often people are like, "What do I need to do?" And I think if people took a step back and say, "Who do I need to be at this moment?" It changes, you know, the, the reference point, meaning that, um, maybe I w- like, maybe you're in a spirited debate with someone at work, and you say, "Who," you know, "Who do I wanna be? Maybe I wanna be compassionate," right? Or, "I wanna be loving." And then the behaviors take care of themselves. I don't have to think about what I need to do if I'm focusing on who I need to be at that moment, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:01 So this is really about a proactive approach to life rather than a reactive one.

Jim Kwik 16:06 Yeah. I very much think, like, uh, one of the syntaxes or strategies of success is you, you know, the be, do, have, share, that kind of model. You know, because it's-- A lot of people wanna jump to the have. They wanna have a perfect body. They wanna have, you know, lots of money or, or whatever, right? Or even when people win the, the, their, their lottery, right? And you know all the stats when people have and what happens over the next X amount of years, they lose all that and more, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 16:33 Mm.

Jim Kwik 16:34 The, those j- jackpot winners. Because they jump to the be, do, have. They jump to the have point, but they were never being a millionaire, so they weren't doing the things that, you know, wealthy people would do to have the things that they would have, right? So I think all behavior is belief driven, meaning that if, uh, at events when people see me do these demonstrations where I'll memorize, uh, you know, a room full of people's names or whatever, 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, regardless of your age, your background, your career, education level, your financial situation, your gender, your history, your IQ, we could all do this. We just weren't taught, right, how to learn. There was no class called memory. Um, you know, as Socrates said, learning is, is remembering. So part of it is knowing that you could have the skills, the, the knowledge, the abilities through training, right? Because s- you know, school taught us what to learn but not necessarily how to learn those, those specific subjects, and I think that's important. But, um, but also when we're going from be, do, have, share, people at these events, they'll come to me and they're like, "Jim, I'm so glad you're here. I know you're, you're a memory coach. I, I have a horrible memory," or, or, "Senior moments are coming too early," or, "I'm just not smart enough," right? And then I'll say, "Stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limits, they're yours," right? And, um, and so I really feel like, you know, everything starts at that being level, that it's part of success is aligning three H's, your head, your heart, and your hands, meaning there's an integration and alignment of what you, what you think and believe, what you feel, and what you're doing. Meaning some people could have goals in their head, and they, they have a standard in their head, but if they're not acting with their hands consistently, maybe they have a goal for health or impact or income, but if they're not doing the actions with their hands, I think it's really important to check in with the second H, which is our, our heart, right, which symbolizes functions of, of emotions. 'Cause we are not logical. We are more biological when you think about dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:38 Mm

Jim Kwik 18:38 ... endorphins. We're this neurochemical feeling soup, right? And, uh, when we're coming, uh, even building on that, yes, maybe you wanna have a, instead of just a to-do list, maybe you wanna add three things you wanna be and also three things you wanna feel that day. 'Cause here's, here's a first principle that I teach with accelerated learning is that you don't-- it's, it's about taking nouns and turning them into verbs, getting in the habit of taking the nouns in your life and turning them into verbs. So what-- Here's an example. I, I think the nature of what- We do, you, you and I and others. It's about, uh, transcending. It's about ending the trance. This mass hypnosis, whether it's through marketing or media or from our parents or from wherever those thoughts kind of came from-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:23 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 19:23 ... you know, and those impressions, those expectations that somehow told us we were broken, that we're not enough, right? Um, and so how do you trans- part of the... And if it's not external, some of that hypnosis is not just coming from marketing or media or fear-based thing, it's coming from ourselves.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:39 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 19:39 It's like internal, you know, belief and internal doubt, and even our internal self-talk. So if you say something like, "I don't have motivation," or, "I don't have energy," or, "I don't have focus," I don't think these are things you have necessarily. I think they are more things you do. So you're taking-- When you have something, it's a noun, but when you do it, it's a verb. So you don't have energy, you do it. There's a process for generating energy. You don't have focus. There's a process for harnessing your focus and concentration. You don't even have a memory, right? There's a, there's a th- there's a process of encoding and storing and retrieving, you know, those memories. You know, you don't have motivation. There's a process for motivating yourself also as well.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:21 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 20:21 So the reason I bring this up is, you know, before we go into all the tactics and the tips for focusing and reading and memory and so on, is just this i- idea of this, having this mindset where it's, it's your, uh... where, where we again coming back to personal responsibility, personal ownership, where you're relentless about your own agency. And, uh, and that gives you-- When you s- turn something into a process, into a verb, that gives you your, your control back, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:46 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 20:46 You're not putting it out there saying, "I, I wake up and I, I, I hope I'm cr- I have creativity so I can write today," or, "I hope I have energy so I could be with my kids." You, you don't have to hope. You could actually do real help, 'cause hope is not a strategy, and say, "Okay, how can I generate energy? How can I create these memories? How can I, uh, how can I-- What's a process for motivating myself?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:09 I love the idea that behavior is belief-driven.

Jim Kwik 21:12 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:12 It, it, it really sort of resonates deeply with me. Uh, uh, and I just wanna share with you what some of the things I've learnt-

Jim Kwik 21:19 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:20 ... over my years of clinical practice. Um, I used to think, and I, I believe this is one of your seven lies of learning, that knowledge is power.

Jim Kwik 21:30 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:30 And I wanna talk about that in a minute. And, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago, I've always been very passionate about the power of lifestyle to prevent, reverse, and also treat most of the things that I see. Always been passionate about that. And what I would often see, Jim, is that some people, you know, you'd spend time with them, you'd try and educate them on the changes that you think if they make them, it's gonna help them feel better, help their brain function, help their heart's health, he- help their energy, their focus, whatever it might be. And yeah, some people would make changes for a few weeks, a few months. You know, they'd change their diet. They'd go to bed a bit earlier. They'd have, you know, a 30-minute walk every lunchtime-

Jim Kwik 22:15 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:15 ... and they would feel different. I thought, "Okay, great. This is awesome." And then, not all of them, but you know, a significant percentage, a few months later or when they come back to see me six months later, they've kind of slipped back-

Jim Kwik 22:31 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:31 ... to their old self. And I, I used to sit for a long time pondering this, going, "What's going on?" It's not knowledge is information, knowledge is power. Because they've got the knowledge. Not only do they have the knowledge cognitively in their brain-

Jim Kwik 22:45 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:45 ... they've also got the experience. They've applied it and felt better.

Jim Kwik 22:49 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:49 So why is it that they're flipping back?

Jim Kwik 22:52 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:52 And I believe it's, a huge part of it's to do what you've just mentioned, which is behavior is belief-driven.

Jim Kwik 22:59 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 22:59 I think it's to do with compassion. You know, if you fundamentally don't like who you are or you have a problematic relationship with yourself, at some point you often will slip back into those negative behaviors-

Jim Kwik 23:11 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:11 ... because they, they align with what you actually think about yourself. You know, you're worthless. You're n- you know, y- y- there's no... You know, you're not worth achieving or whatever it might be. You're not worthy.

Jim Kwik 23:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:21 Right? So before you know it, your behavior start to align with those internal beliefs. And I observed who are the people who truly transform their lives for good, and it's usually when they've changed their internal programming-

Jim Kwik 23:36 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:36 ... the voice in their heads. You know, a person who truly loves themself, who truly cares about themselves, actually looks after themselves pretty well, because that's what someone who loves themself would do. They would look after their body. And even in my own life, I would say I used to be very regimented. I used to be very regimented about routine.

Jim Kwik 23:59 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:00 You know, I would... You know, my classic case was New Year's Day, you know, I'd be like, "Right. This year I'm gonna nail meditation."

Jim Kwik 24:05 Yeah. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:05 "Right. That's it." And I would be great-

Jim Kwik 24:07 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:08 ... for two weeks or three weeks. You know, I'd do my 15, 20 minutes a day, and I'd feel I was rocking the year. And then, you know, you miss a day 'cause you're a bit busy.

Jim Kwik 24:17 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:18 And then that one day becomes two days, and then before you know it, it's something you used to do.

Jim Kwik 24:22 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:23 And I, over the past years, have really worked on the internal dialogue and, you know, my childhood and all those kind of things.

Jim Kwik 24:30 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:30 And as you change your beliefs and your values, I actually find behaviors very easy to stick to now. Like, I'm not as regimented as I used to be.

Jim Kwik 24:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:39 There's a mixture. There, there's a kind of balance between discipline and compassion now.

Jim Kwik 24:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:44 Whereas before, it was kind of like this hard coach to myself. Does, does that resonate at all?

Jim Kwik 24:48 It, it does. I, I think there's a, there's a, you know, there's this pendulum that swings-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:52 Yeah

Jim Kwik 24:52 ... that it could be, it's paradoxical, but it could be true that, you know, things could be... You could, you could, you could, you could, uh, force something, and then also things could be in, in flow, right? That you could, uh, you know, you could strive, and then you could surrender, right? It's this kind of a balance between hard and soft, yin and yang. I, I would say when it comes to mindset, so- You are-- It's been my experience, right? I'm doing-- This is m- I'm starting my thirty-second year of, uh, as a brain coach, that our brains are like this incredible supercomputer, and our self-talk and our beliefs are the programs it will run. So if you tell yourself things like, "I'm not good at remembering people's names," you probably won't remember the name of the next person you meet because you programmed your supercomputer not to. If people truly understood how powerful their minds, uh, are, they probably wouldn't say or think something they didn't want to be true. And that's not to say you have one negative thought and it ruins your life any more than eating just one, some of that candy or that donut will ruin your life. But if you did it consistently every single day- Yeah ... multiple times a day, it will, it will show up in your life. And so for me, you know, when we're thinking about planning our day, it's not so much about, uh, time management. I'm thinking about more mind management. I'm trying to think about priority management. For me, it's about, you know, controlling the controllables, right? And it's about the most important thing is to keep the most important things the most important things. [chuckles] And for me, the most important thing i- the three things are the three things that we control, and we could turn this into a master class. If, if somebody feels... So Limitless, which is the title of my book, it's not about being perfect. Limitless is about advancing and progressing beyond what you currently believe is possible for yourself or what you're demonstrating for yourself. So the opposite of that will be not advancing. It would be being stuck. So if your listeners or your viewers, if they-- Think about it. Listen. Listen. Getting very, very, uh, you know, engaged here.

Jim Kwik 26:53 Think about an area of your life where you feel stuck, okay? I'm, I'm talking to the listeners right now. Like th- take a moment. Is it your health? Are you not advancing in your health, your impact, your, your income, your wealth, you know, your level of happiness? Where do you feel like you're not growing and you feel s- you k- kind of feel, uh, stagnant and stuck and contained? Maybe it's your reading speed. You feel like, um, you're a very slow, uh, learner or, or, or a bad memory. Where do you feel like you're s- trapped in a box? Now, by definition, that box, uh, that cube is three-dimensional, right? And so there's three forces that contain that box, and these are the same three forces that will liberate you out of that box. So when I'm coaching a client, what I'm listening for as I'm going through, like, this intake and this discovery is, is where-- which dimension is keeping them stuck. Where's the bottleneck? So if you think about a Venn diagram, like three intersecting circles, like maybe Mickey Mouse, two ears that are intersecting and a face, there-- these are the three forces, the dimensions, if you will, that keep you stuck and will make you limitless. And the-- I'll tell you the, the... I'll end, give you the ending, you know, of the story. The face, the end one, it, there are three M's. Those are the methods. So you've mentioned that, you know, you, you, uh, as a medical professional, you know, doing the work that you do- Yeah ... people know what to do, but they don't do what they know, right? 'Cause common sense is not common practice. Yeah. How many, how many times do we need to hear about the benefits of, of cold therapy, you know, saunas, you know, breathing, you know, meditation, you know, reading and exercising and, you know, zone two? Like we, we, we hear the same things. So those are the methods, and the methods could be upgraded over time as we learn more and more. We, and, and research is done, and, and we, we, we get tho- that feedback. But a lot of people want to know what to do, but they don't do what they know because you're right. Knowledge is not power. It's potential power. It becomes power when we apply it. So what keeps people-- So if the last M is the methods, what's keeping people from doing what they should do consistently? 'Cause that's the only evidence that people are, are, you know, are, are, they're, you know, committed, is that they consistently act. So the first circle, the first M is your mindset. Mm. Now, you've had many experts on, you know, on your show talking about the power of mindset. You know, we had, you know, this, this conversation about all behavior is belief driven, right? That your brain is like a supercomputer. Self-talk is the program it will run, you know? And so that, that's in mindset. Mindset for me, functionally, how I'm looking at it, I've defined mindset as the set of assumptions and attitudes you have about something. Mm. What's your assumptions and attitudes about money? What are your assumptions and attitudes about health? What's your attitudes, assumptions about love or relationships, right? Because let's say, you know, your attitudes, assumptions about, like, memory is just like, "Hey, you know, it's hard." Like my-- I grew up with a traumatic brain injury. When I was five years old, I had an accident because I was, I had very slow processing. I had poor focus, a poor memory. I struggled every single day. Mm. It took me three years longer to learn how to read. You know, I was being teased. I want people to hear, you know, when I was nine years old, I was being teased in class because I was slowing the class down. The teacher came to my defense and pointed to me and said, "Leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain." Right? And that, and that, that, that affected my mindset because before that, uh, you could pretty much say I was more of a blank slate, right? That w- that was-- I wasn't born with this idea I was broken, but every single time, you know, I, uh, wasn't picked in class for s- you know, for sports or I did badly in school, uh, which was often, I would just say, "Oh, 'cause I have the broken brain." Mm. And that be-- that label became my limit, right? And so adults have to be very careful with their external words 'cause they often become a child's internal words, right? And so while- Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so while, you know, we, while we are a product of our history, you know, the expectations of others, you know, our experience, our external environment, um, you know, family and everything, we and we alone are 100% percent responsible for our lives. And that's something I just choose. You know, I have these primary beliefs that I am responsible for my life, good, bad, or indifferent, for everything 'cause that-- 'cause wherever, you know, whatever you feel... 'Cause if I put the blame outside, that's where my, that's, I'm just giving up my power and my sovereignty to something else, right? To, to my, to the, my boss, you know, to investor, to, to the environment, and I don't wanna do that 'cause then the benefit of having responsibility is that it gives you the power to make things better. Like I got to, um- I got to go to dinner. I, I spent a lot of time with, uh, Stan Lee, you know, the creator of all these superheroes. And superheroes is a big part of my mythos. I even, uh, you know, Limitless, even as you open it up, it has the, the structure and the stages of a hero's journey, Joseph Campbell's work.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 31:40 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 31:41 And, um, and Stan, uh, Stan wanted to meet Richard Branson, and Richard Branson wanted to meet Stan. So I'm picking up to go to dinner, and Stan's in the car, and I just... I was like, "I... Can I ask him? Is it appropriate?" I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna do it because I need to know this because I'm just very curious." I was like, "Stan..." And the reason why I love comic books is they changed my life. I mentioned I couldn't read for three years after my brain injury, like all the other kids, but I taught myself how to read by reading comic books. And something about the illustrations and just it brought the words to life. And so I'm very connected to this, uh, this hero's journey, uh, 'cause that for me, a superhero is somebody... They're not perfect, right? They're flawed. They have challenges. But, you know, they offer people hope.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:21 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 32:21 And they offer people real help, right? And, and that's something we all could do, you know, in our life. We could offer people hope and, and real help, and one person can make a difference. These overarching themes that good will, will, will eventually overcome evil. And, uh, so I, I was like, "Stan, who's your, your favorite, you know, superhero? I-- That's the question I have." And he was like, "Jim, it's, uh, my favorite is Iron Man." And he said, uh, you know, he, he said, "Who's your favorite?" He flipped it on me. "Who's your favorite superhero?" And Stan had this, uh, big iron, uh, Spider-Man tie, and, uh, I was like, "Spider-Man." And when I said Spider-Man to Stan, in his iconic voice, he said, "With great power comes great responsibility," right? Something we've all heard. And truth be told, I, I reverse things when I hear it sometimes or when I read it, and, and maybe 'cause I had a, you know, some head trauma as a child, um, and I heard something different. And I was like, "You're right. With great power comes great responsibility, Stan, and the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:23 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 33:23 When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make things better.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:28 Yeah. I, I, I love that, Jim. So what would you say to someone who says, "Okay, I get that. We've got 100% responsibility-"

Jim Kwik 33:34 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:34 ..."for our lives, but you don't get my life."

Jim Kwik 33:38 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:38 "I've had a, a tough start. Um, I grew up in poverty."

Jim Kwik 33:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:43 You know, "I'm an immigrant in a different country-"

Jim Kwik 33:46 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:47 ..."and I've got all kinds of struggles and discrimination to face."

Jim Kwik 33:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 33:51 "You're saying I've got 100% responsibility for my life, but I disagree." What would you say to that person?

Jim Kwik 33:56 Yeah. I would say whatever script people have, the... I would say f- you're, you're probably right, first of all. Um, you're, you're right that these are all the situations that, that are there. And, and I would say in as kindly as I could say it, uh, and I would say, "And what, what changes?" Because it-- for me, beliefs are s- something that's not necessarily true or false. For me, a belief is, is, is this useful or not?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:26 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 34:26 Is it useful for me to, to believe that? And I would ask that person the same, is that, is it useful for you to... 'Cause, 'cause I also have a belief that if somebody had hardship or they didn't have the connections or they didn't have this, and they still succeeded, and we all know in culture there are many examples-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:41 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 34:41 ... you know, then, then what, then what happened there, right? Like, you know, my parents immigrated, you know, to, to the US. My dad lost his parents when he was 13, didn't speak the language, lived in the back of a laundromat that my, my mom worked at. You know, had no money, had no connections or anything. And then so ev- everybody had... And I, you know, my brain and everything. Everyone has a, a story. The, then the thing is that story could keep us in that mindset as stuck, like we're a victim. And my challenge is that all, all the excuses that... And we all could justify-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:11 Yeah

Jim Kwik 35:11 ... where we are and, and nothing changes. I mean, we're, like, fighting for our limitations. It's like, "This is all the reasons why I can't be happy. These are all the reasons why I can't be healthy. These are all the reasons why I can't make money," or, or whatever, right? "Or I can't learn, or I can't read or anything." And for me, life switched when I started... 'Cause I used to say, like, w- you know, "Why do I have this broken brain?" You know, "Why me? Why me?" And, and literally, you know, I'm activating my reticular activating system, and I'm shining a spotlight on these answers, and I didn't like the answers I was getting, [chuckles] right? Because it w- they weren't useful. I couldn't do anything with that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:45 But when you had the belief-

Jim Kwik 35:47 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:47 ... you could find evidence everywhere to support that belief. Like, you could have a negative belief and go, "Yeah, this is why I've got a broken brain. This is why I've got a broken brain," right?

Jim Kwik 35:55 Oh, absolutely.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:55 So you reinforce the narrative.

Jim Kwik 35:57 Oh, a- absolutely. And then so as I, I... You know, I talk about in the book this dominant question idea where we have 60,000 thoughts on average a day. The challenge is 95% of those thoughts are the same thoughts we had yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. You know, and of those thoughts, you know, lead to, lead to, uh, feelings. Those feelings lead to actions. Those actions lead to experience. Experience go back to, you know, modeling our thoughts, right? And it becomes this loop. And so if you're having the same 95% thoughts, feelings, everything, then how are you gonna effect real change, right, you know, in yourself or, or somebody else? And so my, my thing is I got frustrated. My inspiration was my desperation. I was going through so much pain, so much suffering, so much bullying, not feeling enough, doubting myself all the time. And then I started changing the questions. It's like instead of, like, "Why is this happening to me?" then I started saying, you know, "Well, I'm broken. How do I fix this?" I was like, okay, so I said that gives me a little bit higher quality answers because I start shining, I start activating that reticular activating system, that RAS. Because primarily our brain is a deletion device. We're trying to keep information out, right? If we let everything in-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:59 Yeah

Jim Kwik 36:59 ... we would go, we would go mad, right? We'd be so overwhelmed. You know, so where do we shine the spotlight of our attention? And usually, you know, like for example, we're hardwired to, to respond to our name, right? If, if you're out and about in any city and somebody shouts your name, you're gonna look regardless 'cause it's your har- nervous system's hardwired, your RAS is hardwired to do that. We're also hardwired to look for things that are important to us, the things that we value, the things that are survival, the things that we ask questions about obsessively. And so I started asking, "How do I fix this?" Then I said, "How do I make this better?" Then I was like... Then I started getting answers. I was like, okay. And then with those answers, I started behaving differently and started getting different kind of results, and that reinforced, you know. So I think we all have this kind of momentum and, you know, 'cause everyone wants m- m- momentum, but some people have momentum-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:44 Yeah

Jim Kwik 37:44 ... in a direction they don't want to go, you know, also as well.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:48 I mean, I think it's really powerful hearing that, you know, this idea that- We have 100% responsibility. To make sure you're taking action after watching this video, I've created a free guide to help you build healthy habits. We can all make short-term change, but can those changes become a fundamental part of our life? Often they don't, and that's why in this free guide, I share with you the six crucial steps you need to take that are really, really effective. If you wanna get ahold of that free guide right now, all you have to do is click the link in the description box below. As you say, you can be dealt a bad hand in life, right? For sure.

Jim Kwik 38:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:33 But if you don't believe you have agency to change, it's just not that useful. It's like, yeah-

Jim Kwik 38:42 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:43 ... we can... You can have self-pity. You can tell the story, and again, I get it.

Jim Kwik 38:49 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:49 Many people have had-

Jim Kwik 38:50 And my heart goes out to people-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:51 Totally

Jim Kwik 38:51 ... who are suffering and struggling. Absolutely.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:53 But it was really interesting for me, uh, w-one of... Well, there's two now, but one of the conversations on this podcast that has changed me the most was the conversation I had with a lady called Edith Eger a few years ago. She... At the time, she was 93, and she was in Auschwitz Concentration Camp-

Jim Kwik 39:11 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:11 ... when she was 16. Her parents were murdered within a couple of hours of getting there. But there was something about her that was just so, it was just so inspiring. Like, she was full of forgiveness-

Jim Kwik 39:24 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:25 ... compassion, empathy, and she said things to me like, "When I was in Auschwitz, I didn't see myself as a prisoner. The prison guards were prisoners. They weren't free in their minds."

Jim Kwik 39:39 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:39 "I was." She said to me, "I never forgot the last thing my mom said to me, which was, 'Edith, nobody could ever take from you what you put inside your own minds.'"

Jim Kwik 39:50 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:51 Right? And I never forgot the last thing she said to me which was, "Dr. Chatterjee, I have lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own minds."

Jim Kwik 40:07 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:08 I fundamentally am not the same person after that conversation as I was before it because if e- if I'm ever having a struggle in my life, and it... something seems insurmountable, and I'm tempted to play any form of victim narrative in my head-

Jim Kwik 40:26 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:26 ... about, "Oh, poor me. Blahdy, blahdy, blah," I think, "Hey, Rangan, you know, in Auschwitz, Edith could reframe [laughs] .

Jim Kwik 40:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:33 Right?

Jim Kwik 40:33 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:33 If she can do it in that hell-

Jim Kwik 40:35 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:35 ... you can probably do it here."

Jim Kwik 40:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:37 Right? So I found that very inspiring, and literally-

Jim Kwik 40:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:39 ... two weeks ago, I spoke to, uh, there's a book that's just come out called My, uh, My Friend Anne Frank.

Jim Kwik 40:45 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:45 So Anne Frank's best friend, Hannah Pick-Goslar. It, it's one of the most gorgeous books I've read. I say gorgeous. It's tragic at the same time, but-

Jim Kwik 40:55 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:55 ... Anne's best friend of moving away from Germany, coming to Amsterdam, um, the war's closing in, the Nazis coming in, her ending up at the age of 13 in a concentration camp for two years.

Jim Kwik 41:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:06 And then, you know, she's liberated. She died a few months ago, uh, just before her 94th birthday, but literally in that chair two weeks ago was her daughter-

Jim Kwik 41:17 Wow

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:17 ... and her co-writer of her book. And again, I was asking them, I said, "What is it? What was your mom like?" You know.

Jim Kwik 41:24 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:24 What, uh, that trauma as a child. She said to me, Ruthie said to me, "She could deal with anything, anything. She was a doer. If there was a problem, if things weren't going well, she'd always..." Very much like you're saying-

Jim Kwik 41:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:39 ... there was 100% responsibility. So I feel we can learn. When you see people in those extremes-

Jim Kwik 41:45 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:46 ... right? It, it's not about making ourselves feel bad and go, "Our, our pain is nothing compared to theirs." It's more, for me, it's more about, wow, if they can, if they can learn these lessons-

Jim Kwik 41:58 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:58 ... there, I can learn them here.

Jim Kwik 42:00 Yeah. Those two stories gave me, uh, goosebumps. Yeah, I don't know if the camera showed it, like when, when, when you were telling it with Edith, and I, I call them truth bumps 'cause there, there's something that's, that's a, a, a fundamental truth there. You know, I, I had, um, 20 years ago plus, I was giving a, a presentation at a conference in Upstate New York and, uh, like three or four hours north of New York City. And one of the other speakers, her name was, uh, Immaculee. She told this story. Uh, she's from Rwanda, and she was there during the genocide. And she hid in a bathroom with, uh, seven or eight other women and stayed there. Stay... Um, I get choked up thinking about this. Stayed in there, uh, to survive for 91 days in the bathroom with seven or eight women. A, a small bathroom, um, hiding there while, you know, her f- uh, the, the most horrific things happened-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:02 Mm

Jim Kwik 43:02 ... to, to the people in her life. And when she came out of that, she found out that her entire family was, was murdered and, you know. And it's interesting because when I met her, I, I just, like, I, I hugged her and I just cried and, and I offered her a... She was gonna fly back to New York City, and I offered her a ride. You know, 'cause I'd dr- I'd driven there. And I, she went into detail about what she went through, and I pulled over three times 'cause I just couldn't deal with, like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:30 Yeah

Jim Kwik 43:30 ... the details. Um, you know, so I was just bawling the entire time, and it, it's interesting though because sh- she came out of it though, the, the, the, you know, s- has some of the most... She's, like, one of the most forgiving, peaceful people that I know. And, you know, she wrote a book called Left to Tell. And, uh, and, and it's her story going through, uh, you know. And it's, it's, it's all-- And all the great stories, you know, that we, when we talk about the hero's journey, it's going from limited to limitless, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:03 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 44:03 Going, going from, you know, like some-somewhere where people are stuck or they're trapped into a point where there's some kinda change inside, and they're, they're liberated, and they get a level of freedom, right? And, and I feel like, um, it's so profound. And I use that also as a lesson when I see people, you know, going through situations, and they come through it, and they, they're authentically, genuinely, y-you know, better off than a lot of people who haven't gone through a fraction of what they've gone through.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:33 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 44:33 And I, and I do, do believe that, again, that with struggles comes strength. We hear a lot about h- uh, post-traumatic stress, and I'm not minimizing that at all. That's, that's a very real thing. You know, I get a lot of people coming to us that wanna learn how to read faster, but their nervous system is really locked up, you know, and they're in their, they're trapped in their survivor brain, and it's holding them hostage of their creative executive functioning and everything. And there's also something that I just wanna shine a spotlight to whoever's, you know, this might be useful for. We hear about, a lot about post-traumatic stress. We don't hear a lot about post-traumatic growth. You know, this phenomenon where people have gone through adversity that they wouldn't wish upon anybody, right? But they also authentically wouldn't change what they went through because there was some kind of gift-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:20 Yeah

Jim Kwik 45:20 ... through there. They, they, they found a mission. They found a strength. They found a character trait. You know, they, they found, they found something, a purpose going through it. You know, for me, my challenge was learning every single day, not feeling good enough every single day, being bullied for my, you know, for being different, um, and having this kind of, quote-unquote, "disability." You know, and life has a sense of humor, and because of it also, my, uh, my superpower was shrinking. Like, I would, I would sit behind the tall kid 'cause I never had the answer, right? I, I would get sick if I had to give a book report, right? I would've, I would avoid the spotlight 'cause I didn't wanna be seen. I didn't wanna be heard.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:56 Why, why'd you call that your superpower?

Jim Kwik 45:58 Because I was really good at avoiding getting attention, meaning that, you know, when they passed around the book to, to, to you to read out loud [chuckles] you know, I, I-- When it got to me, I wouldn't understand any of those words. I would pass it on. That was so painful for me. I never wanted to feel that spotlight. I think a lot of public speaking, the fear of public speaking, came from those reading circles 'cause nobody's good at reading the first time, and that's what we learned. And so fear is learned outside of, you know, a couple innate, you know, uh, you know, fear-based things in our nervous system as human beings, but a lot of that fear is learned. And I talk about it in the book about the LIES you mentioned that we tell ourselves. LIE for me, everything's an acronym, stands for limited idea entertained. It's not true that you're not enough. It's just a limited idea we're entertaining at that time, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:47 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 46:47 And going back to the beliefs, I like to choose beliefs that are useful to me because I ask is this useful or not useful? Because the truth is, again, all the excuses we make for our lives, it could be absolutely accurate, and nothing changes because excuses are, you know, in fact, useless. You know, when, when we complain about something and we put it outside of ourselves, nothing is different. We waste a lot of time. We waste a lot of energy. We, we waste a lot of focus, you know, even by doing that. And we honestly-- Okay, I'm like, the coaching part of me is coming out. We, we can't be upset by the results we didn't get from the work we didn't do, you know? And so much, so many of us have to do more of that deep work, you know, in, in certain areas. And so, you know, even online, you know, the-- I'll give you a fifth one just to have this conversation with you for the fifth horseman. Not only is it digital deluge and digital distraction and digital, the other one was digital dementia, you know, and digital deduction. There's digital depression, right? People are, you know, not feeling enough, and they're going through and, and comparing themselves

Jim Kwik 47:47 to the highlight reel of everything. And I just wanna remind everybody on social media that the grass is greener where we water it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:54 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 47:54 And sometimes the grass is greener on social media because the filter the person's using, right? Or there's, and there's a whole lot of artificial turf, you know, in social media land also as well. You know, so if we, if we compare ourselves to other people, we're always gonna be green with envy, and it, and then that's, that's a challenge 'cause we feel less than, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:12 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 48:12 It can be embarrassing. And so I just wanna bring to light, you know, there, these are challenges, and it's, you know, we know that mental health, you know, uh, challenges is a, is a real, uh, loneliness, uh, d- you know, depression. You know, s- there's an algorithm when it comes to media and social media. It's kinda like there's an algorithm to our mind. Like, the algorithm is whatever you engage with, you get more of. You watch all the cat videos and like, share them and everything, comment. You're gonna get... Your newsfeed's gonna be full of cats.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:40 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 48:41 Right? And your minds are the same way. If you're just watching the news and everything that's dark and threatening and scary, right? You, whatever you engage with, you're gonna get more of. So you're just gonna start, your RAS, your reticular activating system, your nervous system is just trained to look at what's threatening. And pe- chronic stress will shrink the human brain. Chronic fear will actually suppress your immune system.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:02 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 49:02 Right? Chronic fear is a whole area of science called psychoneuroimmunology. It just makes you more susceptible to colds, to flus, to, to viruses, right? So we have to stand guard to our mind in terms of what we're letting in. Going back to the conversation about mindset, though, you know, and personal responsibility that, you know, with great responsibility comes great power. I start there because I think there's three big things in, in mindset. So mindset is your set of assumptions and attitudes you have about something, your attitudes and assumptions about your problems. 'Cause often people think they're problems, and we're addicted to our problems, right? And we start justifying, you know, this is the reason why, and we use them as kind of, uh, you know, evidence of why we can't be any way, any way else, you know? Um, and so if we start focusing on the problem-- I had, uh, Quincy Jones in our audience. We do an annual brain power conference.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:49 The music producer.

Jim Kwik 49:50 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:50 Who did Michael Jackson and-

Jim Kwik 49:51 All of that

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:51 Yeah, amazing

Jim Kwik 49:52 ... We Are the World, and he was in the audience. I was like, "Okay, this is-- I, I have to invite him on stage."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:57 And so you didn't know. You were just doing an event, and you saw him.

Jim Kwik 50:00 Yeah. He, he, he was there. I mean, we-- we're, we're, we're, we're longtime friends and, you know, we would-- we collaborate on some, some stuff, and he was there as, as a guest. But I, I, I pulled him on stage, and then we started to go into this conversation. Um, this was in, uh, you know, quite a few years ago. And I was like, "Okay, I wanna..." And he has the-- he could speak all these languages and, and, and part of it is you were talking about music and languages and, and everything. But then I was like, "Okay, everybody knows your successes," right? You listed some of them. Um, I wanna know, like, tell me about your problems. Tell me about your struggles. You know, what, you know, what, what are some of the things that, that you went through or currently going through? And he looked at me. He said, "Jim, I don't have any problems." I'm like, "You're eighty something years old. Like, how are you-- Like, we all have problems." He's like, "No, I don't have any problems. I have puzzles." I was like, "Wow, that's a mindset," right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:51 That is a mindset.

Jim Kwik 50:51 'Cause a puzzle-- Like, think about it. A problem is just like, ew, I don't wanna deal with that. But a puzzle is like a game. It-- There, there's a solution, you know, to it. It's like a riddle and something that you can have fun with. And I was like, wow, that, that's like, uh, his, one of his... That's part of his mindset, the set of assumptions and attitudes about problems, right? Well, I don't have problems. I have puzzles. And so that's like, like s- a small example of, of this shift.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:13 Do you know if he, um, has always had that, or is this something he has cultivated intentionally-

Jim Kwik 51:20 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:20 ... throughout his life? Like, maybe the younger Quincy used to have disempowering-

Jim Kwik 51:26 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:26 ... sort of narratives and problems, and he figured out after a while, "Hey, if I keep repeating that, that's-

Jim Kwik 51:31 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:31 ... who I become." Whereas if I call these things puzzles-

Jim Kwik 51:34 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:34 ... but it totally changes everything. My downstream thoughts-

Jim Kwik 51:38 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:38 ... about that puzzle are-

Jim Kwik 51:40 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:40 ... completely different than my downstream thoughts when I call it a problem.

Jim Kwik 51:44 Yeah. I don't know the specific incident, you know? He didn't know either in terms of when that, when that, when that happened. You know, but it's definitely one of those lead dominoes, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:53 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 51:53 Because that informs so much downstream, you know, a-as you mentioned. And he has this, this way of, uh, me-- We, we're-- He says you have to go to know. You know, one of the reasons why he thinks it's important to travel, even in your own country or your different neighborhoods, is because you get to experience, you know, some-- there's different words, there's different foods, there's different language and different music, and it changes your perspective. And I think a ch- a point of view, changing your point of view, who you spend time with or the people, place, will give you a different way of looking at a problem. Because often the problem is not the problem, right? When we say we have these problems or, or all these situations, often the problem is not the problem. Often the problem i- are our set of assumptions and attitudes about that problem. You know what I mean?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:36 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 52:36 The problem is not often the problem. The problem is more our attitudes about the problem that kinda keep us in that box. So I'm just think-- always thinking about mindset, and the three things I would think about mindset for everybody is not just your attitudes and assumptions about money. 'Cause if your attitudes and assumptions about money is money is the root of all evil or, you know, you only can get rich if you're hurting people, whatever, then you won't use the methods, right? That keeps people inconsistent. 'Cause you-- That's why people self-sabotage is 'cause of mindset. They take one step forward and two steps back, right? They buy your, one of your five bestselling books, right? And it just sits on their shelf unread and becomes shelf help, not self-help, right? Because their mindset is, it's just like, oh, their mindset is, "Oh, if I have the book, then my life is better." And that's absolutely not true, right? And even if you read the book and then apply it, your life is no better than somebody who is illiterate, right? So the mindset's a little bit different. Um, I would also say that in this mindset, it's not just your set of assumptions about health and relationships and love that will keep you from doing the methods. Th- There, there, your, your attitude assumption about yourself. So there are three things that I would focus on in mindset. Number one, what I believe is possible. Because if you don't believe it's possible, you're not gonna do it, right? And that's the other second thing is what I believe I'm capable of. 'Cause some-- You could believe it's possible for someone else to heal or ha- someone else to have a great relationship or someone else to be happy or someone else to read three times faster and understand what they read, but you might not believe it's possible for yourself, right? So what I believe is possible, what I believe I'm capable of, and then the third one, what I believe I deserve, right? Because that's kind of a thermostat setting that we, you know, if you feel like we don't deserve that income or deserve, you know, that relationship or deserve, you know, that level of intelligence, that impact, whatever, then we're always gonna be mitigated in that box because that, that dimension is holding s- strong. So that's mindset, and the last one is methods. And the last part of it, the third dimension or the second dimension here, and that starts with M, is motivation. So you're only gonna be stuck in that box if you have the right methods to get out of that box, if you have the right mindset that allows that box to expand, and, and the s- if you have the motivation to even struggle, get out of that box, right? To be able to practice and play at the edge of what you perceive are your limits. And I believe that motivation is, is a very straightforward thing for me. In order to motivate yourself or to motivate someone else, uh, your kids, your, your team, right, or someone to buy your product or someone to invest, there are three factors. The formula is three parts to get limitless motivation. And limitless motivation is just P, the letter P times E times S three. P times E times S three. So really s-- Let's, let's use an example. Let's say You know, you listen to one of our podcasts and you hear all these experts talk about, uh, exercising and it's good for your brain, right? As your body moves, your brain grooves. You create brain-derived neurotropic factors and-- But you're not exercising, you're not moving daily, right? Um, because maybe you have a limitless mindset, but you're not because the first part is P, is purpose. A lot of people, they think purpose is something cognitive. I'm pointing to my head. But really, I think it's more the heart. It's a feeling. It's something, it's something that you feel. You feel purpose. And if you don't have a reason, you won't get the result. Even when people forget people's names, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:59 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 56:00 So if I ask an audience of a thousand people, I say, "Who's-- has trouble remembering names?" Ninety-five percent, ninety-nine percent of people raise their hand, right? If they're honest. And then I said, "Okay, what if we gave you an, uh, a suitcase full of millions of wealth, right? Currency. If you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet outside, who's gonna remember that name now?" And then those same people raise their hand, right? And then so as a coach, I'm saying, "Okay, how did you all become memory experts all of a sudden, right? You just said you couldn't do this, and now you can do this." So I'm calling you on your BS, your belief systems, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:38 [laughs]

Jim Kwik 56:38 It's not true that you can't remember names. You're just not motivated, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:42 Right.

Jim Kwik 56:43 Because we don't remember all names, but we don't forget all names either, right? And I would say that genius leaves clues, that when something's working, there's something there that's either visible or invisible to us, conscious or unconscious, that we're not connecting with. Meaning that you tend to remember the names of people that could be good for your business. They could be a whale of a client, a great-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:04 Mm

Jim Kwik 57:04 ... person for your podcast, uh, someone you're attracted to, right? There's some kind of reason to remember their name, and with the reason, you'll get the result. So even if you wanted to hack that, when next time you're at an event or a wedding or something, you wanna remember names, just ask yourself, you know, when you're meeting someone, "Why do I wanna remember this person's name?" Maybe the pers- maybe to show the person respect, maybe to get a referral, maybe to make a sale, maybe to practice these things that I learned, you know, from this, from this podcast, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:28 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 57:28 And if you can't come up with the reason, you won't get the reward, right? So that, that's the power of purpose, meaning-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:33 So some of the time people will come to you and-- 'cause obviously people come to you, they wanna read faster, they wanna, you know, remember things.

Jim Kwik 57:40 Memorize things.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:40 They wanna remember names.

Jim Kwik 57:41 Memorize a speech, right, a fact's figures, form. They're in medical school. They're doing anatomy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:44 But you're saying, uh, uh, are people trying to jump the gun? Are they trying to get to just-

Jim Kwik 57:50 The method

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:50 ...

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:50 Jim, give me the, give me the method. Give me the hack. Tell me how to learn. But you're like, "No, no, back up a minute. Let's go upstream. What's your reason?"

Jim Kwik 57:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:57 Without the reason, forget it. Go ahead.

Jim Kwik 57:59 And that, and that's the thing because, and I truly, and I get, again, I've, I've got goosebumps. So you zoom in here, like, and they're truth bumps 'cause I get so passionate about this. I feel like if you're listeners, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna-- uh, I don't know who I'm talking to right now, but I expect that you listening to this right now, you probably have forgotten more about health and personal growth and, and, and self-actualization and anything that you've heard on this podcast, more than most people will learn. Most, more than most of your family and friends have learned. You're like, you're, you're, you're, you're probably, your friends are probably asking you, "Why are you listening to another podcast, watching this, another YouTube," right? You know, and, and it's hard to change people. Like, just something about how hard it is to change ourselves, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:39 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 58:39 And, and I would say also, how much are you putting that into play? Because common sense is not common practice, right? My book, Limitless, when I was first submitting it to my publisher, it was all methodology. And then before I hit send on, you know, in the email, I was like, "Will a hundred percent of the people who read this book get the results they're hoping for?" And I was like, "There's just no way," 'cause a lot of people know what to do, but they don't do what they know. So what's missing? Mindset-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:06 Mindset

Jim Kwik 59:06 ... and motivation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:08 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 59:08 Right? So that's why I spend most time, 'cause honestly, a lot of the techniques, ninety-five percent, we have courses and everything else, a whole academy, students in a hundred and ninety-five nations that go through this and, like, speed read and improve their memory and focus and everything. But ninety-five percent what we publish is, is free. You know, YouTube is free, podcast is free, and people could-- But the, so the, the things to do is always there, right? But [chuckles] do you have the mentality to do it, and do you have the motivation? So the first thing is purpose. And I'll g- I'll give you the, the, uh, a hard illustration that I had recently. I was, um, going out and about, and I saw someone I thought I recognized. You ever see that? You go like, "Do I know that person?" And I was like, when I got-- I was like, they called me by name. I was like, "Oh, that's that per-" But I didn't recognize them. It's not that I don't have a great memory. They looked totally different. Because the backstory is this person was very, very unhealthy when I knew this person.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:57 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 59:58 I mean, ex-extremely unhealthy or very overweight and lethargic. And the friends, we were just, like, not a-- he's not a close friend, but we would just kinda coach him, just like, "Oh, you know, why don't you stop s-smoking that and doing this and drinking that and, and trying this?" You know? And he would just, no. He would take pride in being unhealthy, right? And I see him years later, and I don't even recognize him. He looks younger, and he's fit, and he's got this kinda glow. And I was like, "I, I need to know," 'cause genius leaves clues, like, "What? What happened?" He starts telling me all the things he's doing. And I was like, you know, there's a lot of stuff we talk about on our podcast. And I'm like, "Well, y- yeah, we've been telling you about that for years."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:34 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:00:34 He's like, "Yeah," but, you know, uh, he, he's like, "A little while ago, I was off on a business trip, you know, killing myself. I came back, and, uh, my daughter was crying hysterically, and, um, had a nightmare that I had died," you know.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:49 Oh.

Jim Kwik 1:00:49 And she was like, she was broken, and she was just, like, clinging on him. And he-- that was, that was purpose for him, you know? And because of that, he had a reason, and he got a result. So what I'm just saying, the P times E times S3, you start with purpose, 'cause if you don't have a purpose, if you don't have purpose in reading that book, you're not gonna remember what you read in that book, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:07 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:01:07 And most people just, you know, read a page in a book, get to the end, just forgot what they just read 'cause they didn't have purpose, right? And so I would say start with purpose and start with learning states and these states of curiosity and anticipation and focus. These are things you don't have. These are things that you could do and create. But always start with a reason. The, the, the second thing, though, is someone could have unlimited, limitless purpose to work out or to read or to med- and, or to start a business or, or finally talk to that person they, they've been wanting to, to date and still not do it, 'cause the E is you need energy, right? Motivation. Somebody who is exhausted is not gonna be very motivated to work out-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:45 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 1:01:45 ... or to study that day or to make those calls they need to make, right? And so if you had a big process, let's say we're going back to working out or reading. If people have seen pictures of me with Elon or Oprah or whoever, people always ask how we connected, and I'm telling you, like, yes, we were-- got connected by people in the same room, but how we maintained that was a, a deep love of learning. 'Cause anybody at that stage, they, they didn't get there by accident, right? They love to read, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:09 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:02:10 You read to succeed. Leaders are readers. We've heard this for years. As someone has decades of experience like you do and, and you put into a book, and somebody could read that book in a few days, they could download decades and days, that's the biggest advantage-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:21 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:02:21 ... I think in life, period, right? Most-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:23 The, the, the ROI on reading books is just-

Jim Kwik 1:02:26 Yeah, and that's why we do these-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:27 ... phenomenal

Jim Kwik 1:02:28 ... accelerated learning and speed reading programs at Facebook, Nike, Google, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, you know, at Harvard, dif- different places because especially 'cause you could spend four hours a day reading. Just think about all the emails and proposals and social media and magazines, all the research. If you could just double your reading speed, cut that in half, save two hours a day. Two hours a day over the course of a year, that's massive. Even if you save one hour a day over the course of a year, that's three hundred sixty-five hours. How many 40-hour workweeks is that? About nine. Two months of productivity you get back saving an hour. And, and reading also, by the way, just for encourage, you know, somebody who's just, has a book, you know, in one of our books or something on your shelf that you haven't read yet, you know, it's-- Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. I think it's one of the most, and one of the best ways to, to be mentally, to stay mentally fit. But let's say you're not reading each, each day. Like, you wanna-- you committed to reading thirty minutes a day, and you're not doing it. If you ate a big processed meal, maybe that's why, 'cause you're, you're in a food coma, right? Or-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:28 So the energy. You're saying-

Jim Kwik 1:03:30 The energy

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:30 ... so you've got the purpose, you've got the desire, you've got the motivation.

Jim Kwik 1:03:32 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:33 But because of maybe your lifestyle behaviors, you've got no energy to kind of act-

Jim Kwik 1:03:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:39 ... on that purpose.

Jim Kwik 1:03:41 Right. You have, you have a purpose to drive somewhere, but you don't have the gas, the fuel to get you from here to there because you're in a food coma. Maybe you have a newborn child, and you haven't slept in three days. You're not gonna be very motivated to go to the gym that day. So I would just say, you know, a lot of what you and I talk about in our books and podcasts is how to get energy, how to manage stress, 'cause stress depletes a lot of energy.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:01 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:04:01 How to create a positive peer group because energy vampires can steal. I think some people are batteries included. They're born with it, but some people are batteries not included, and they're just stealing everybody else's energy, right? Or the foods. You're eating a lot of processed foods and high levels of sugars and not the best brain foods, and you're not-- Or, and sleep. Can we talk about, you know, like sleep? So if you're not getting that, then you're not gonna be-- An, an exhausted person is not gonna be motivated, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:24 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:04:24 And so an ex- e-exhaustion will make a f- make a, a coward out of anybody. You know, we're not gonna boldly go and do what we need to do. And then finally, you could have limitless purpose to do whatever you're trying to achieve to get out of that box, the mon- the money, the relationship, whatever. You could have unlimited amount of energy and still not be motivated 'cause you need S three, small simple steps. It's been my experience that sometimes when people set goals, "I, I wanna make the next unicorn. I wanna find my romantic partner, live happily ever after, my soulmate. I wanna make a million," whatever it is. "I wanna have the six-pack ab per--" It's way too big for somebody who hasn't been close to that, and how do you break that down into small, simple step? Meaning maybe working out, you haven't done it, and you-- it's been on your to-do list, and you're not doing it. That's too big. A small, simple step, put on your running shoes, right? If you can't get your kids to floss their teeth, get them to floss one tooth, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:18 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:05:18 'Cause little by little, nobody's gonna stop at one tooth. Get them to put one sock when they're cleaning their room into the hamper, right? Or if you're not reading, get, you know, maybe forty-five minutes of reading. By the way, it takes about forty-five minutes for the average reader to read one book a week. The average person only reads, what, two books a year, you know? And there's a reason why Warren Buffett reads five hundred pages a day. There's a reason why people lo- you know, who are very successful read to shortcut, you know, the, the, the success achievement process, you know? But maybe it's, if you're not doing that, forty-five minutes a day is what it takes. Someone reading-- So the average book has about sixty-four thousand words. The average person reads about two hundred words a minute. If you divide those numbers, three hundred twenty minutes to get through a book. Divide by seven days in a week, forty-five minutes a d- a day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:02 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:06:02 Twenty minutes, four twenty-five minutes, just break it down to reading periods, and, you know, it's, it's, it's a little bit of work. But, you know, and that's the thing is, and I, and I, I know we described, like, you know what? Be-be-being sick is, is hard, and, and eating right and exercising is hard. We are-- we choose our hard. [chuckles] Being broke is hard, and working and, you know, studying and, and implementing things is hard, and we choose our hard every day because we have that choice. And so when I'm going back to small, simple steps, maybe reading is too hard. Opening up a book is not hard. Reading one line is not hard, right? So I think that how I get my small, simple step is I ask myself this key question, and I wanna invite everyone to write this down. What is the tiniest action that I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal where I can't fail? What is the tiniest action I could take right now that will give me some progress towards this goal where I can't fail? You know? And so, like, then you'll get your, like, little, you know, uh, uh, BJ Fogg talks about tiny habits.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:00 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:07:00 Right? And so you get your small, simple step because little by little, a little becomes a, a whole lot. And that, that's really what-- So when I'm working and coaching somebody, or I wanna be able to get them to do something that's gonna be empowering, I, I wanna say, is this their mindset? Do they not believe it's possible? Do they not believe they, they're capable of doing it? Do they believe they deserve it? Then, then you know where the intervention is, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:23 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:07:23 Um, if, or in motivation, do they not feel purpose? Do they know it intellectually but are not feeling the purpose? Do they not have enough energy, right? So they have to generate more energy. Maybe we have to check their stress or their sleep, you know, or, or, or their, um, their diet. And- ... uh, maybe they're just confused because this to- a confused mind won't do anything, right? And so maybe we have to break it down into small, clear, simple steps. And then finally, the last M are your methods, and then those are the methodologies, right? On how to read faster, how to learn another language quicker, how to remember names, how to lose weight, right? All right. How to be able to sleep bet- whatever the method, how to invest and how to do something on with AI, whatever it happens to be. The reason I just put it last is if you don't have-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:04 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:08:04 ... the mindset or the motivation, you're gonna be stuck in that box. And so my, my, my, my message to anybody, if you're gonna sum this up, is I think out of the past few years, people feel a lot of fear. And when people feel fear, they're, they're looking for safety. Fear, they're not looking to grow, 'cause that's uncertain, right? And that, that could be unknown-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:21 Mm

Jim Kwik 1:08:22 ... and that could be very threatening. And so I would say that maybe have... look at it through a new lens, kinda like, uh, Quincy was talking about. Maybe this is not a problem. Maybe this is a puzzle. Maybe instead of saying, maybe instead of downgrading your dreams to meet the current situation, maybe we should be thinking the opposite. Maybe instead of downgrading our dreams to meet the situation, maybe we should think about, how do we upgrade our mindset? How do we upgrade our mo-motivation? How do we upgrade our methods that we're using-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:49 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 1:08:50 ... to be able to meet those, those incredible dreams?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:53 Yeah, I love that. It's so comprehensive, and, and I think it really helps people understand why when they jump to methods without the preceding work-

Jim Kwik 1:09:02 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:02 ... sure, you can make changes, but often those changes aren't long-lasting. Do you know what I mean?

Jim Kwik 1:09:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:08 You can do it. This is like your classic January two or three-

Jim Kwik 1:09:12 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:12 ... week burst where you're doing the methods that you've learnt about, but you haven't upgraded the mindset.

Jim Kwik 1:09:17 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:17 You haven't upgraded your belief system. So I really, really like that approach.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:21 It's interesting talk, hearing about your M's. I have this kinda mnemonic for a morning routine that I-

Jim Kwik 1:09:27 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:27 ...'ve written about. I've, I've made videos about. The, the three M's of a morning routine for me are, uh, mindfulness, movement, and mindset. So-

Jim Kwik 1:09:35 Love it

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:35 ... again, I'm not saying it's for everyone.

Jim Kwik 1:09:37 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:38 You know, we all gotta find what works for us. But for me, I start it with some form of mindfulness practice.

Jim Kwik 1:09:43 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:43 Could be breathing, could be meditation, something like that. Some form of movement. You know, I, I like to do a five-minute kitchen strength workout while my coffee's brewing. It's a, it's a-

Jim Kwik 1:09:53 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:53 ... it's a system I've got going.

Jim Kwik 1:09:55 You stack those habits.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:56 Stack it-

Jim Kwik 1:09:56 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:57 ... very, very small. And then the third piece for me is mindset.

Jim Kwik 1:10:01 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:02 So I always finish off, uh, reading something uplifting or thought-provoking-

Jim Kwik 1:10:08 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:08 ... every morning. That, that's kind of... I can do that in 15 minutes. If I have the luxury of 45 minutes, it can take 45 minutes, an hour, but it can also be compressed if I need to, to get those three M's in.

Jim Kwik 1:10:18 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:18 But for me and for many of my patients, they found that that's a very helpful framework to think about starting their day. Well, you, you mentioned reading, and I know you also, like me, talk about the importance of setting up your environment-

Jim Kwik 1:10:31 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:31 ... to make things easy. And so I've always got three or four uplifting books-

Jim Kwik 1:10:38 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:39 ... kicking around my kitchen or my living room. Why? Because, A, I'm reading them, B, so in the morning I don't then have to think, "Oh, well, what am I gonna read today?"

Jim Kwik 1:10:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:48 You know? You know, too much choice, procrastination. I just pick up one of the books that's there.

Jim Kwik 1:10:55 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:55 And before you know it, you've read a chapter.

Jim Kwik 1:10:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:57 So it's... And again, I wanna tie in what you just said to what we were saying at the start, which is the importance of the morning.

Jim Kwik 1:11:05 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:05 Right? The importance of intentionally setting how your day is gonna be and, you know, you've shared some tools.

Jim Kwik 1:11:13 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:13 I've shared some tools, like things that people can think about because here's the thing, if you don't... And I get it, some people say they're busy, they don't have time, but the problem is if you start the day reacting-

Jim Kwik 1:11:27 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:27 ... consuming-

Jim Kwik 1:11:28 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:28 ... watching the news, right, your, you're setting, your thermostat is set at a different temperature, right?

Jim Kwik 1:11:36 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:36 You, you... Everything you experience that day-

Jim Kwik 1:11:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:39 ... is likely to be affected by that. You know, it's interesting, a few years ago, one of the things my wife stopped doing was watching anything negative, right? So at the time I was watching House of Cards. I started watching it quite a few years ago now, and I thought, "Oh my God, this is amazing." I couldn't stop watching. And I said to my wife, I said, "Hey, babe, come on, you gotta watch this with me." She said, she, I think she watched about five minutes of one of the episodes and says, "That is way too dark for me these days. I am not watching that."

Jim Kwik 1:12:09 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:10 And at the time I was a little frustrated 'cause I was like, "No, I want my wife to watch it with me." But actually it was fantastic because she has made a conscious decision.

Jim Kwik 1:12:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:22 And to some people that's gonna be extreme.

Jim Kwik 1:12:24 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:24 Right? But actually I think a lot of the things that we regard as extreme these days [laughs] are necessary because of the world in which we're living, right? If you allow negativity in, don't be surprised when you have anxious thoughts. Don't be surprised when you're up at night thinking about the worst things that could happen in life, right?

Jim Kwik 1:12:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:43 So again, we've all gotta do what's right for, for us.

Jim Kwik 1:12:46 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:46 But she made an intentional choice and she stuck with it. She won't watch dark films.

Jim Kwik 1:12:51 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:51 She doesn't, she's not interested. She's like, "It may be great. The reviews may be fantastic, but I don't want to have that kind of energy state in my mind anymore." You're a brain coach. What would you say to that?

Jim Kwik 1:13:04 I mean, it's similar to when people feed their body, right? They could feed themselves some gluten or whatever, and some people are more, more sensitive to certain things, and I see that no different than you feeding your body certain foods that might be a little bit, people, some people could enjoy in the moment and everything, and there may be some long-term consequence, but they are willing to accept that. And other people a bit more sensitive and just saying like, "I can't really do this right now, you know, with mine." And so as you feed your body, you could also feed your, you're also feeding your mind. And food is information certainly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:35 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:13:36 And Netflix is information also as, as well. And again, it's this dis- I, I personally don't judge what people do.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:43 No, me either.

Jim Kwik 1:13:44 Uh, and I know you don't either. And it's just-- But I, but I do say that if people do that and then complain about something that's coming from that behavior, then I get a little bit like people getting respon- personally responsible.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:58 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:59 Jim, I wanna talk to you about reading a little bit and learning, because you help people read quickly or quicker than they currently do. And it's interesting, one of my cousins the other day said to me, he's quite a bit younger than me, said, "I just can't read books anymore."

Jim Kwik 1:14:14 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:14 "Like I, I don't have the attention span to read."

Jim Kwik 1:14:17 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:17 Right? And I think many people feel like that. So they go, "Oh, it's not for me." And it may not be for them, but part of me feels that just many of us have untrained the skill or we've allowed technology to overwhelm us, and we've now trained ourself to be distractible.

Jim Kwik 1:14:35 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:36 I kinda wanna know your perspective on that. And then I wonder, maybe it's a good, a good way of tackling this is to walk you through, I guess, my process for getting ready for podcasts, because that generally involves a lot of reading.

Jim Kwik 1:14:52 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:52 So I can tell you what I do, and you can maybe tell me-

Jim Kwik 1:14:54 Yeah, absolutely

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:55 ... how I can improve it. So first of all, maybe we tackle this saying, are people able to read less than the past?

Jim Kwik 1:15:02 Okay. So focus, as we're, we're talking about morning routines and touching your phone and doing those things, I think focus is a muscle, right? And I don't think it's something you have, it's something that you do, and you can flex that muscle, and that's one of the reasons why I personally choose not to touch my phone the first half an hour, hour f- of the day. 'Cause when you wake up in the morning, you know, and you're in this relaxed state of awareness, you're very suggestible. If the first thing you do is pick up your phone, which has access to the world's information, and it... you're just context switching for thousands and thousands of times and, you know, in a, in a very short period of time. You know, you're rewiring your brain, number one, for distraction, right? We talked about that. Um, but you're also rewiring your brain for reaction, right? Because every, I don't know, voicemail, text message, email, whatever, could put you in a mood. That could hijack-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:49 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 1:15:49 ... your mood. But in the beginning, like, you know, when you say you wanna practice mindfulness in the morning, that's the la... That, that's not very mindful, right? Just sharing, you know, switching from context to context, context.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15:59 You mean mindfully reading Instagram posts is not that mindful.

Jim Kwik 1:16:02 [laughs] Well, even when I said people like, you know, brush their teeth trying, uh, with the opposite hand, it's not just about, you know, the, the cross lateral and potentially, you know, engaging a different part of their brain. Uh, yes, that, that's-- But it's also a gateway habit that allows, "Wow, if I could brush my teeth with the opposite hand, what else can I add in terms of stack my habits?" But also, you're not gonna be good at it at the f- at the beginning, so it forces you to be mindful. So mindfulness doesn't have to be regulated just to meditation. We could bring mindfulness to when we eat, right? We could do it to everything. And then if you're eating with the opposite hand, as an example, right, then it forces you to be present.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:38 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:16:39 Right? And, and for me, I, I, I like that feeling as opposed to... Y- you're right. It's not just what you eat, it's how you eat, right? And a lot of people are working while they're eating, so they're not in that parasympathetic rest and digest place. And so they're probably not even getting a lot of, you know, the, what they could get out of consuming. Um, and I'll go into the reading in a m- in a moment. Just, just on the consumption part. In the morning, like another framework I use for my day, and I don't-- It's not perfect, right? All of these are like little filters. Generally, I like to keep the morning free, and of course, there's other things. Doctor appointments. I have to, you know, do this for, for, for m- my child. I have to do, you know, I have this other podcast interview. But generally, in the mornings, I like to be, I like to create. That's-- I found for me, uh, my brain mode in the morning is to be creative. So I wanna output. In the afternoon, I tend to consume, and that's where I tend to do some study, uh, read for a podcast, listen to a podcast, have conversations with people. I tend to consume information. Um, so I'm putting information in. And then the last, where I create, consume. In the evening, I wanna clear, and that's what I'm trying to do. So I wanna clear my mind, meaning I wanna write down the things I have to do the next day, maybe so I can get it out of my mind, so I don't have to ruminate about it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:53 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:17:54 Or I w- or maybe I'll do some yoga nidra and just do some breathing meditation to clear, you know, my, my mind.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:00 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:18:00 Or maybe I'll journal, and I'll just write it, or I'll talk to my wife and talk about what I did that day to clear my mind.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:07 Fan of journaling?

Jim Kwik 1:18:08 What's that?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:08 Are you a fan of journaling?

Jim Kwik 1:18:10 I am. I am. I've-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:10 Why is, why is it good for our brain?

Jim Kwik 1:18:12 So for, for me, I journal at two different times. I tend to journal in the morning and in the evening. That's my personal preference. And, um, again, uh, people could find their own way and, and figure out what works. Um, in the morning, I, I do have this gratitude practice. I, I really think it's important. So many people actually will tell me that, "I'll, I'll, I'll do a gratitude practice when I have something to be grateful for," and something to that nature. And I was like, "Okay, that's, that's, that's interesting." Because I don't think you have to... And that's what I told this specific person. I was like, "Uh, maybe you don't have to wait for a greater life to feel grateful. Maybe if you feel grateful, you'll have a greater life." You know what I mean?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:48 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:18:49 'Cause I'm always like, just like the responsibility and power and reversing, and I just, I just find I-- and that's kinda my, my thinking style. 'Cause I think that for people to feel-- How are you gonna have more if you don't even appreciate what you have? I know so many people, even clients, that have a lot, that they're just not very happy people. A lot, some of them are miserable because they don't even appreciate, you know, the things.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:08 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:19:08 And I think if people wanna feel truly wealthy, a mental exercise I do is, uh, you know, write down all the things you have in your life that money can't buy. You know, if you could hear this right now, what are you willing to y- Would you give up your hearing for a certain amount of money or, or whatever, right? Or a thought experiment like what if, you know, what if the only things you had in your life tomorrow were the things you expressed gratitude for today? Not, not, not wrote it down, but actually expressed gratitude for the people or the things, you know? And I just feel like gratitude is just a he- such a healing emotion.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:38 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:19:38 You know? It's just, like, it trains my nervous system that there's enough, you know? And I think honestly, my experience has been what you appreciate appreciates. Meaning what you appreciate in your life tends to appreciate, meaning it, it enhances or gets or grows.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:54 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:19:54 You know? And so that's what I wanna, to have it, you know, th- that makes me feel good, and it also puts me in that kind of parasympathetic. So I tend to do gratitude in the morning and night, and I, it helps me for me to journal 'cause I... Everybody has a different process than sometimes you can imagine, but I like writing it down.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:08 I mean, I've- I very much echo those views about journaling. For me, also it's a morning and evening practice.

Jim Kwik 1:20:14 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:14 I've, uh, in the morning, it's about gratitude. It's about setting an intention for the day. You know, similar practices, maybe s- worded slightly differently about trying to frame the day you want to have. To make sure you're taking action after watching this video, I've created a free breathing guide that's gonna help you reduce stress, calm your mind, and boost your energy. In this guide, I share with you six really simple breathing practices that work immediately. Even just one minute a day will start to make a big difference. To receive your free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below.

Jim Kwik 1:20:53 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:53 Um, it, again, it's about intention, right? It's about not living a, a reactive life, not being passive. It's about being active and about-

Jim Kwik 1:21:00 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:00 ... trying to generate the experience of life that you want. And then in the evening, you call it clearing, which is a really nice way to think about it. It's about sort of reflecting on the day. Like a, a, an athlete would always have a coach and reflect-

Jim Kwik 1:21:15 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:15 ... on their performance, right? That's how they get better. They, they assess. They go, "Yeah, but you can improve here."

Jim Kwik 1:21:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:21 Uh, "Oh, yeah. Great. I can tweak it there." That's how they get better, right? That's how they become-

Jim Kwik 1:21:25 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:25 ... a high performer. But we all want high performance in our life, you know, whether it's high performance as a father, as a mother, as a work colleague. We all want those things. And, and so I kind of feel a process of reflection is very, very important for us daily, if you can.

Jim Kwik 1:21:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:41 I'm very biased towards analog things, right?

Jim Kwik 1:21:44 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:44 I think as the world becomes more and more digital-

Jim Kwik 1:21:47 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:47 ... you know, you've been in my kitchen, you've been in my house, it's a very analog setup intentionally.

Jim Kwik 1:21:52 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:52 In fact, me and my wife are currently having a discussion about a smart TV. I'm reluctant to get one because I want to make the behaviors that I don't want to engage in myself or I don't want my kids engaging in, I want them to be difficult to do at home.

Jim Kwik 1:22:10 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:10 I don't want them to be easy. So I'm saying if we get a brand-new spanking TV where things work... Currently, we've got this old Virgin box where Netflix takes like five or six minutes to load. It's a bit slow. I love it because-

Jim Kwik 1:22:24 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:24 ... that friction to do that behavior will often mean it doesn't happen.

Jim Kwik 1:22:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:28 Right? So I'm-- As the world becomes more and more digital, I personally like to set up things in an analog way at home.

Jim Kwik 1:22:35 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:35 You know? And I like to write in nice journals that feel good. And I, I, I just, I wanted to ask you before we go back [chuckles] to sort of reading.

Jim Kwik 1:22:44 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:45 Like, as a brain coach, as a memory coach, as someone who's spent what? Over 30 years now helping people with this stuff, is the act of writing it down in your mind different from typing it into, let's say, an app in your phone? I mean, I've seen some research supporting that it is.

Jim Kwik 1:23:03 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:03 What's your perspective on that?

Jim Kwik 1:23:05 Y- Uh, my, that's been my experience also as well, especially with our students and the feedback that we get. Um, we have, you know, we have students in every country in the world, 195 nations. And people vastly prefer handwriting than, than typing, uh, digital. Let's, let's take note-taking, right? We know that there's a learning curve, but there's also a forgetting curve, that when you hear something on a podcast or in a lecture, uh, you can lose upwards of 80% of it within the first 48 hours. But, uh, in order to mitigate that, capturing it, you know, is certainly great. Now, digital is great for storing. It's great for ease of sharing with your team or your family, right, and files. Um, but actually, when people are, when students are tested for the things that matter, comprehension, retention, handwriting notes ex- uh, surpasses digital note-taking. And part of... I'll give you one reason why-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:54 Mm

Jim Kwik 1:23:54 ... is, um, p- a lot of people are pretty good typers, and they could type as fast as you and I are speaking, but you can't possibly handwrite that fast.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:03 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:24:03 So what does it do? It forces you to filter-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:06 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:24:06 ... like, is this important, and organize the information. So you're not just... Because the worst way of taking notes is having everything verbatim. That's not helping anybody, right? All the research has, you know, shown that keywords are more important than just having a transcript of necessarily of given that. It certainly helps to read it, but if you could pull out information and, and do practice retrieval and test yourself and teach somebody else, you're gonna learn it, you know, way far better. But, um, I, I, I prefer lifestyle more analog because I don't need another reason to get on a screen.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:36 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:24:36 It, it's, it's a little bit hard when I'm traveling 'cause I like to read, so, you know, I can't necessarily bring five books, you know, my hand, you know, traveling on a, with a carry-on or something like that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:47 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:24:47 Um, but I, I like, I'm very tactical. And also, I do like handwriting because even in just thinking about it logically, right? Leadership or innovation, it's, it's an inside-out process, right? Y- you're taking something invisible in your mind, and you're making it visible, like an invention or a, or one of your books, right, or a podcast. You're taking something in your mind before it actualizes physic- in the physical environment. And I love handwriting something, and I've always been like this because it's, it's the first step of making something in your mind visual on the outside.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:25:19 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:25:20 You know? And I think that's the beginning. That's the first step of the creation process. Going back to the conversation about reading speed, how do you read? So right now, we have the right mindset, right? That leaders are readers, that reading is to your mind what exercise is to your body. You have purpose, so you're not reading without intention, right? P times E times S3. And the methodology is... Okay. So First, first of all, I wanna make it easy. Just like you were saying, like, you don't wanna get a smart TV, and you want, you want Netflix to load in split seconds. You just wanna make it difficult. And that, that's part of, you know, designing habits, proper habits. You wanna make the things that are not good for you more difficult. Like, if you don't have your phone bo- on your nightstand, you know, when you're sleeping, then you're not gonna pick it up, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:04 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:26:04 It's like putting it in, in your bathroom is probably a safer place. Be-- You know, and just, like, doing the things I want. Like I, I put a, a kettlebell and a chin-up bar right, you know, at the entrance-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:15 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:26:15 ... of my office. And I'm just like, I see it, and it was just easy to do, just like you do something when you're, when you're doing your, making your coffee.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:22 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:26:22 Right? I mean, that's-- why not make the g- things that are good for you easy to do, and the things that are not good for you more difficult? You know, so if you are gonna get that thing, that, that alcohol, whatever, why don't you put it in the basement in a very difficult place, you know, so you have to like, "Oh, man, I don't wanna go all the way downstairs and do that," or that candy bar or whatever. Or just not have it in your home, [chuckles] you know, which makes it a lot easier. Just like if you don't-- if you're not good with bread, like it doesn't agree with you, and you're at a dining table, you know, and they bring you bread, you could either look at that bread and say no t- twenty times in your mind throughout that whole evening.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:55 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:26:55 Or you could just say no when they bring it to you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:57 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:26:57 And then you don't have to say no every single time, use up all that energy-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:00 Hundred percent

Jim Kwik 1:27:00 ... and intention.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:01 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:27:02 So going back to the power of purpose, I'm the same way with my reading, right? And I set up my environment just like you do. I have books specifically around, and I do read multiple books at, at, at a time. And I'm a big fan, you know, especially the past few years, of reading fiction books. Um, the, it's-- a lot of times I'm, I'm, I, I obsess about non-fiction. I'm like, "What's the purpose in this?" I wanna read books on, you know, on, on neuroscience, adult learning theory. Um, and, and I've seen so many benefits of reading fiction, and even research shows it, it improves empathy, um, you know, character development, imagination-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:34 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:27:35 ... uh, problem-solving, pattern recognition. It also, it, it also, um, improves your EQ, you know, where, where reading maybe something else was your IQ. This is more your, your emotional quotient.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:27:45 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:27:46 Um, and so I also schedule my reading. And so I s- I'll say this. So I mentioned that it takes about f- if you're sl- if you're a basic reader, tw- two hundred words per minute, then, um, you get through a book forty-five minutes a day. So I schedule that, and I recommend everyone schedule. 'Cause if you don't schedule your workout or you don't schedule your meditation... I mean, we schedule parent-teacher meetings and doctor's appointments and investor meetings or client, team meeting, whatever, but we're not scheduling our own growth.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:13 So, so you, you've said, I think before, reading is a workout for your mind.

Jim Kwik 1:28:17 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:17 Is that what you said?

Jim Kwik 1:28:17 I, I think reading is to your mind what exercise is to your body. So-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:20 Yeah. So then if we use that analogy and go, yeah, you scheduled your physical workouts-

Jim Kwik 1:28:25 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:25 ... you need to also schedule your mental workouts.

Jim Kwik 1:28:28 Yeah, and I think some people don't e- don't schedule their physical workouts, and they don't get to it. And so they w-- be- because life fills up those voids.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:35 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:28:35 And then y- it's at night, and it's, it's after dinner, like, "Oh, I forgot to work out," or, "I just don't have the energy to work out."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:28:43 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:28:43 And that's the thing is prioritizing the most important things, keep the most important things the most important things. And I think top of that is self-care. You know? And self-care is not just, you know, working out. I think also part of self-care is self-love. You know, we started that in the beginning of the conversation, that part of our journey is, you know, looking in the mirror and falling in love with that person looking back that's been through so much, but is, but is still standing, right? Just like how you're saying if you love yourself, you're not gonna... I mean, this, like, cons-- If you really deeply care about yourself, you're not gonna do things that would potentially harm it by eating certain things or-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:17 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 1:29:18 ... or, or otherwise, just like you wouldn't do that things for someone you love and just if you love somebody else. And I would say no amount of love from somebody else is gonna give your soul what it needs from you, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:29 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:29:29 The love and caring and compassion you need from you. And I'm not saying it's easy, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:33 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:29:33 Uh, and, and this whole thing, nothing I'm saying is necessarily easy. I, I would do say it's simple, but simple doesn't mean-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:29:39 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:29:39 ... easy, right? And so what I would do is schedule it, 'cause if you don't schedule it... I think the number one productivity performance tool we have is our calendar, right? But if you don't put it down in your calendar, it's not, it's likely not gonna get done. So I would schedule that forty-five minutes or twenty minutes of reading, whatever you're committed to, you know, also as well. Um, when you have a book, if you're reading, in case you prefer analog, and if you're watching this on video, you know, I'm just grabbing my book.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:04 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:30:04 You know, so, like, even basic things, right? When I'm looking at this and I, and I open up the book, when I'm looking at it at this angle here, so I'm, I'm taking the book and I have it flat on the table, uh, for those of you just listening to this. If I'm looking at this angle from where I'm sitting, I'm sitting upright, then the, the, the words appear smaller at this angle 'cause I'm looking at it at an angle. And now some people, what they'll do unconsciously to make it easier for them to read is they'll slump over like this so they could see the words better. But when I did that, what happens? I go into this kinesthetic posture, which is slower than visual posture. I, I collapse my diaphragm, which we talked about is also the key to getting-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:43 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 1:30:43 ... more oxygen to your brain. That's why people fall asleep when they're reading often because of their, their physiology is affecting-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:30:49 Wow

Jim Kwik 1:30:49 ... their s- psychology. I would also say when you're reading something and I'm, and you're going through enjoying this, number one, have an intention. Why, why are you reading this book? 'Cause the fastest way to read something is not to read it at all, right? So if you ever read a patient a book and got to the end just like d- nothing registers, maybe you don't have questions. Going back to the reticular activating system, how, how part of it is initialized by questions. So it's kinda like a long time ago, you know, maybe twenty years ago, my, my, my sister would send me these, uh, pictures and email postcards of a very specific kinda dog, breed of dog, pug dogs, right? These kinda smooshy, fun dogs with smooshy faces. And, um, they're very compliant. You could dress them as, like, ballerinas, and they're just, oh, whatever. Um, and, and, and I was like, "Why?" My question was, "Why is she sending me these?" And she's a good marketer 'cause she's seeding, 'cause her birthday is coming up, right? And I was like, "Okay." And funny thing happened. When I started asking the question, I started seeing these pug dogs everywhere. Like, I'd be at the grocery store checking out, and the person in front of me is holding a pug dog.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:31:50 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:31:50 And I'm running in my neighborhood And somebody's walking six pug dogs on a leash. And then my question for everyone listening is, did these pug dogs magically appear in my neighborhood? And no, of course not. But I wasn't paying attention because, again, your brain is primarily a deletion device, right? So we're not shining-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:11 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 1:32:11 ... a spotlight, and so we-- it, it's in the dark for us. And so, but once I started asking the question, I just started seeing the pug dogs everywhere. And so my question for everyone listening is, what are your dominant questions? You know, my dominant question was, how do I be invisible? So I got really good ideas on how to shrink and not be seen in class, and that was my result. You know, a dominant question that I talk about in the book is, uh, a friend of mine found out her dominant question out of the sixty thousand thoughts, some of them are questions. The one she asks all the time: How do I get people to like me? And you don't know anything about her, but you know, you know her career, where she live, but you know a lot about her. Someone's obsessed with, how do I get this person to like me? That's the question they're asking. What, what's their life like, their personality? You know, they, they're a martyr. People take advantage of them.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:32:55 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:32:55 They're a sycophant. Their personality changes depending on who they spend time with because they want to be liked. Um, and it's interesting, you know. Like, you don't know anything about her, but you know a lot about her because you know the question. And my principle here that I'm talking about, questions are the answer. You know, like the que- the, the example I put in the book with Will Smith, and I train a lot of actors how to speed read scripts, memorize lines, and I'll give you some of the speed reading tips in a moment just to-- because these, these illustrations, these stories stick with people. Um, we were tr- brain training during the day. We're in Toronto in the winter. In the evening, he's shooting his movie, right? Superhero movie. And it is cold, and it is not-- People think it's very sexy and very thrilling to be on a movie set, but it's, it's really just people just waiting all the time. And during this waiting outside, his family is there, and I'm there outside, and we're, we're freezing, just kind of watching these monitors underneath this tent, and he's bringing us hot chocolate that he made himself, even though there's a crew that can make it for him. And, and, you know, he, and he's, uh, cracking jokes and telling stories. And I found out earlier that day, his dominant question is, how do I make this moment even more magical? How do I make this moment even more magical? And I realized that evening, you know, he was demonstrating that question at that time-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:08 Wow

Jim Kwik 1:34:08 ... by making the hot chocolate and cracking jo- He's just bringing more magic into it, you know. And my, my dominant question could be like, you know, what's the best use of this moment, right? I mean, you know, you, you read the book, uh, uh, Zero to One by Peter Thiel. You know, he says like, you know, "If you had to reach your ten-year goal but you were only given six months to do it, how would you go about doing it?" And you ask a different question, you're gonna get a way different answer.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:33 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:34:33 Right? And so my, my question for everyone listening, what do you think your dominant question is? Because that determines your focus, and that focus determines how you feel and what you do and what you experience in your life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:44 Do you have your dominant question?

Jim Kwik 1:34:46 Yeah. For the longest time it was, how do I make this better? Because remember, I felt like I was broken, so my dominant question came out of my struggle. So I was like, how do I make this, uh, better, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:34:55 It's a very empowering question, that, isn't it?

Jim Kwik 1:34:57 It, it is because then I start shining a light and saying, "Oh, there's a pug dog. There's a pug dog. There, there's the answer. There's the answer. There's the answer."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:03 But even within the question is the energy of agency. Like it's-

Jim Kwik 1:35:07 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:07 ... built into the question. That's why for me it's such a wonderful question.

Jim Kwik 1:35:10 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:10 It's-- You can't adopt a victim mindset with a question like that.

Jim Kwik 1:35:15 Yeah. And that's, and that's great. I got goosebumps again because that, uh, that's, again, I call them truth bumps because the, the presupposition is you do have the power to make it better.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:35:23 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:35:23 Right? And so people could ask a question like, how do I make the most of this moment, right? The three questions I ask when I read, going back to, to reading nonfiction, preparing for a podcast. How can I use this? Why must I use this? When will I use this? So think about the power if you're reading something and not normally getting, you know, maybe ten percent of what you think you could get out of it. If you start reading something, a book on health and wellness, on, on glucose, on whatever you happen to be reading. How can I use this? Then you're like, "Oh, there's a, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog." Right? Just like in when I teach students how to do well in standardized tests, like reading comprehension, you know, I always tell them, "Go read the questions at the end first and then start reading the, the, the reading comprehension."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:08 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:36:08 Then you're like, 'cause then you know what the author is looking for. Then you have answer. There's the answer. There's the answer. Why read all this, get to the end and not, and you're like, "Oh, that's what was important," right? And so you ask your question. So in the beginning of my book, every single chapter starts with three primary questions to activate their reticular activating system, so they're looking for that answer.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:28 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:36:28 So when they read it, they're like, "Oh, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog." So three questions I ask every day of my life-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:35 Mm

Jim Kwik 1:36:35 ... especially when I'm in learning mode. How can I use this? Right? Then I'm like, there's the answer. Then I could use it this way, this way, this way, this way. Why must I use it? So it goes my head to my heart, so I have purpose, right? I think about all the-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:36:46 Mm

Jim Kwik 1:36:46 ... rewards and how my business, my podcast will be better, my book will be better. How can I use this? Why must I use it? Because without reasons, you won't get the results. Just like asking why do I want to remember the person's name. And then I say, "When will I use this?" And that's the scheduling. 'Cause I-- Going back to the LIE, limited idea entertained, that knowledge is power. It's not. It's potential power. We have power when we utilize it. I have a primary belief that every hour you spend listening to a podcast like this, to be fair, you should spend an equal hour putting it into action, right? Every hour you spend lis- reading a book, every hour you spend in a lecture, you should spend an equal hour putting into play, right? And that, I think that-- 'cause otherwise nothing happens. If nothing, if nothing changes, nothing changes, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:27 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:37:27 I wanna get really, like, fundamental. And then when will I use this? And then I schedule it. I'm like, "Oh, this is a great thing. I know why I should use this." And then I schedule like, "Oh, I'm gonna do this."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:36 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:37:36 You know, do this, add this part to my podcast here.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:39 So one of the ways in which people can get better at reading-

Jim Kwik 1:37:44 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:44 ... is by asking the right questions beforehand.

Jim Kwik 1:37:47 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:48 Like I-- what I'm thinking about is, is let's say someone's bought a book That they heard a guest on a podcast, thought, "I'm gonna buy that book."

Jim Kwik 1:37:57 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:37:57 But the book hasn't been read yet. But took the action-

Jim Kwik 1:38:01 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:01 ... they bought it. And some days they're trying to look at it, and they're probably reading the same page over and over again.

Jim Kwik 1:38:09 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:10 That, and they just can't move forward with it. So why might that be? Well, I don't know. To me, it's like, okay, you could be tired, right?

Jim Kwik 1:38:17 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:17 So nothing's going in that day. It could be that the book was poorly written.

Jim Kwik 1:38:22 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:22 Right? So therefore, it's not you, it's actually the b- the book isn't that well-written-

Jim Kwik 1:38:26 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:26 ... which does happen.

Jim Kwik 1:38:28 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:38:30 Um, or I'm guessing it could be that you're not, you've not primed yourself in the right way to read it. Is that, is that sort of how you would look at it?

Jim Kwik 1:38:38 Yeah. And th- and, and, and built in everything you just said, again, uh, personal responsibility and agency, it, it's, it's there. You know, even, even if it's not a book and it's a lecture, I'll even find, I'll notice, I'll control my state. Like I have to s- I go to a lot of conferences. I speak for a good part of my living, and I can be on three continents in one week or in front of 250,000 people a year, usually at live events. And I could be sitting in the audience waiting to go on, and somebody else is speaking on something in the industry. And, um, and I can see the effect by looking at people around me is they're falling asleep, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:39:11 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:39:11 We've all been at lectures like this or even in school. [chuckles] And, and, and, but, and I'll, I'll take agency. I, I, honest to God will do this, uh, just not, not because I'm so enlightened, it's just I don't wanna be bored, right? I wanna control how I feel 'cause I'm the thermostat, I'm not a thermometer. I don't wanna be bored just because I'm reacting to people. And I'll like, I'll, I'll change my mindset. I'm like, "Wow, this is fascinating. How is this dude, like, putting everybody to sleep all at the same time?" And I'll actually get curious, and I'll get energized thinking about that, but that's how I'll entertain myself. Even, you know, or if I'm in a movie and I have to stay in the movie and I don't h- I, you know, I don't wanna leave because I have family there or for friends, I'll just, like, think about other things, about how I could apply this and use this and, and so on, 'cause I'll c- I'll, I'll take responsibility for how I feel and, and what I'm thinking and wh- and what I'm doing. We can always control our mindset, our motivation-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:01 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:40:01 ... which are our feelings, and the methods, our behaviors.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:05 So the same situation's going on, but your experience of that situation now becomes-

Jim Kwik 1:40:10 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:10 ... very different, doesn't it?

Jim Kwik 1:40:11 Very, very good. And, and not r- just like if a book is poorly written, I could try to find the gems there, or I could take responsibility and say, "Um, this is not book's not for me," and that's still my agency. I could walk out of that movie-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:21 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:40:21 ... or that, or walk out of that speech or anything else. So I start with having the right questions and have purpose. Like I, I read with intention or I listen with intention, right? People aren't randomly listening to your show. They, they could because they like you, right? And they know you offer-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:34 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 1:40:34 ... value, and they would get even more if they, if they thought like, "Oh, like what are the kind of questions that I have so I could have..." 'Cause you pull information inside here by asking questions, right? And if you don't have those questions, nothing's gonna register 'cause you can't push information into somebody's head, right? A podcast can push information, but you could pull it in.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:53 Yeah. It's interesting, Jim. I've, maybe for two or three years now, on the audio version, so not the YouTube version-

Jim Kwik 1:40:59 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:40:59 ... on the audio version when I record my outros, I always say, you know, "What's one thing you can take away from-

Jim Kwik 1:41:09 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:09 ... this conversation and start applying into your life?" And I do that very intentionally because it's like, okay, you've heard a lot.

Jim Kwik 1:41:16 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:16 You've hopefully been inspired, but let's just make it one thing. What's one thing-

Jim Kwik 1:41:21 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:21 ... you can take away and apply? But as I was, um, researching you for this conversation, you talk about the importance of, you know, you've already mentioned how much we retain, how much we forget-

Jim Kwik 1:41:36 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:36 ... within 48 hours, and you talk about the importance of teaching it-

Jim Kwik 1:41:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:39 ... when you teach it to someone else. So I was thinking maybe for next season I might, um, tweak my outro-

Jim Kwik 1:41:47 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:47 ... to be instead of just one thing you can apply and what's one thing you can teach someone else about what you learnt. You know-

Jim Kwik 1:41:52 Yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:41:52 ... would that, do you think that would make a difference?

Jim Kwik 1:41:54 Yeah. I think, I think both, both make it maybe rich, but if you want a single one out, and people could test this 'cause everyone's a little bit different, but I, but I learn so I could teach, right? I, I've, I have a philosophy that when you teach something you get to learn it twice, and I also feel like we teach the things we most wanna learn. That's a different subject 'cause I wanted-- I was a poor learner, right, and my struggle became my strength. And, uh, so I teach other people how to learn. I think that if you give someone an idea, you enrich their life. But if you teach someone how to learn, they can enrich their own life.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:24 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:42:24 Kinda like that old, like, uh, learn how to fish.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:26 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:42:27 And so what I would say is, yeah, absolutely. If you wanna learn... Okay, so when you're reading this book, have a purpose for doing so. You know, notice that, I just wanna close this out, that if I, if I'm not gonna bend my body, and if you're not watching this in video, I have the book again, um, on the tabletop and I'm, I'm, my, I'm in visual posture, meaning I'm upright and I'm breathing properly, and I don't wanna see it at an angle. So instead of collapsing my body, I just wanna close this loop. Then you just move the book, right? So now I could see the book and at an angle. I can even rest it on the table or rest it on my knee.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:42:58 A- and that makes a difference?

Jim Kwik 1:42:59 It does.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:00 Wow.

Jim Kwik 1:43:00 Because over time, especially if you're reading faster, you know, part of what keeps people reading slowly is just visual fatigue.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:06 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:43:06 Right? So if, if the b- if the book is at an angle, then it's, the words are smaller, so more difficult to read logically.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:13 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:43:13 But if they're tilted towards me, then all of a sudden they, they are noticeably larger and easier to read, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:18 Yeah. I love that.

Jim Kwik 1:43:19 And then I have questions, you know, that I'm asking, so then I say, "Oh, there's the answer, there's the answer, there's the answer." So I never get in a situation where I read something and I just forget what I just read or n- didn't understand it. It just like time passed, one ear in, one eye out the other, whatever, and then I'm asking questions. Now that, that's for smart reading. But for speed reading, if you want greater speed, like a- like all we teach is not, is not skimming or scanning. Like we work with a lot of attorneys, a lot of financial advisors, a lot of medical doctors. You don't want your, you don't want your doctor to get the gist of what they're, you know, what she, they're reading, right? [chuckles]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:43:52 [chuckles]

Jim Kwik 1:43:52 Oh, I, I don't, I don't. So, you know, so a lot of traditional speed reading is scanning, skipping words, getting the, uh, gist of what you read, right? And that, that, that, that's never worked for me 'cause I started as a memory trainer. So one of the ways you can improve your reading speed is first of all- Get your base rate. All right? So I would say put a mark in the margin. Pick up a book that you're reading or a brand new book. Put a little mark in the margin where you're starting, uh, currently today. It might be somewhere in there. And then read for 60 seconds. Set a timer on your phone to go down for 60 seconds and have it ring, and then put a mark in the margin where you left off. So in 60 seconds. And then count the number of lines you just read. And it count-- You know, you could guesstimate, right? So don't-- If there's two words in a line, don't count it as a line. And then you have your lines per minute, right? That's how many lines you read in a minute. And you could easily also kind of approximate how many words there are per line. In most books, you'll find about 10 words per line, right? If I was to count or average the, the average number of words per line-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:44:53 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:44:53 About 10. So let's say you go through and you read like tw-20 lines in, to simplify it, in 60 seconds, 200 words per minute, right? Now that's, by the way, about the average reading speed, about 200, 250 words per minute. Now, if I ask you to pick up where you left off and put the clock on 60 seconds again, pick up where you left off, but just do one thing different, is what I'm gonna ask you to do is just underline the words with your finger or a pen. Not, not you're actually not marking it, but just like use it as a visual pacer. And a visual pacer is-- it could be a pen, a highlighter, a mouse on a computer, right? I use my finger because everyone carries them with them, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:34 [laughs]

Jim Kwik 1:45:34 So you don't have to worry about them. You have them at all, at all times. If you just underline the words, right? You don't even have to touch the page. And you did that for 60 seconds and count the number of lines you just read. That second number will be on average twenty-five, fifty percent or more.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:50 So, okay, I love this.

Jim Kwik 1:45:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:51 So you, you read one section to get your baseline.

Jim Kwik 1:45:54 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:54 Then you, you're not rereading that.

Jim Kwik 1:45:56 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:45:57 You're going to a new section.

Jim Kwik 1:45:58 You pick up-- So you're putting a mark in the margin where you start-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:00 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:46:00 ... and where you end, count the number of lines, and you have your base rate.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:03 And then the second time, all you're doing is as you're reading the new, uh-

Jim Kwik 1:46:07 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:07 ... piece of, uh-

Jim Kwik 1:46:08 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:08 ... or the new words-

Jim Kwik 1:46:09 Where you left off

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:09 ... you're just underlining with your finger-

Jim Kwik 1:46:12 Yeah. You're just going-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:13 ... keywords

Jim Kwik 1:46:13 ... underline. You're not-- Yeah, exactly. You're just going left to right, left to right, left to right, right? Back left to right, back to left to right. And you're just-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:20 Not everything, just keywords.

Jim Kwik 1:46:22 Every, every-- No, no, you're not marking it. You're just literally using your finger and going right underneath and like this. Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:27 Oh, the whole thing?

Jim Kwik 1:46:27 Yes, just like this. And you're just following your eyes across the page like this.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:31 Wow.

Jim Kwik 1:46:32 I'm telling you, you don't have to believe everything I'm saying. Everyone, listen, just pick up a book and do it, and then count the number of lines you did. Even without practice. You haven't even practiced this, but if you practice it, it'll even be more. And I'll tell you why, logically, because as human beings, you know, we want the explanatory schema, the reasons why. A couple reasons. First of all, kids naturally, when they're learning to read, will use their finger while they read-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:46:54 Mm

Jim Kwik 1:46:54 ... to help them to focus. Until, depending on what kind of school system you went, you got unique feedback. Some people got a ruler to their hand or whatever because, you know, they wanted-- And I'm not saying that I'm, there's a conspiracy trying people not to use their finger because they want to keep people i-ill-informed or anything.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:47:10 [laughs]

Jim Kwik 1:47:10 I'm not saying that. But if you just use your-- It's interesting. Kids organically will use it, use their fingers to help them focus. Um, interesting also, we do it. So I-- when you do this, notice when I ask you to count the number of lines you just read, everyone will start with doing what? Using their finger to point. One, two, three, four, five. Or a pen. One, two, three.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:47:31 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:47:31 Because you're using a visual pacer to count because you know it helps you to focus. So why not use that while you read? The third reason why you use your finger while you read or a visual pacer, again, you could be using a, you know, a pen across, you're not marking it, right? You're just going right above the line, is because your eyes are attracted to motion. Because as hunter and gatherers, like if you're in a bush and you're hunting lunch, right? There's a rabbit there, there's carrot, [chuckles] whatever your lunch is, right? If a bush next to you moves, you have to look at what moves because that's survivor, survival. It-- Number one, it could be lunch, or number two, you could be lunch, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:07 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:48:07 So you have to look at what moves in your environments. And so when you're underlining the words across the page left to right and back and forth, your eyes are being pulled through the information as opposed to your attention being pulled apart.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:17 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:48:18 Right? And the other reason why, because right now, if something-- someone just walked across the room that we're in, everyone would look, even people watching on video, right? You and all of us, because your eyes are attracted to motion. So when your finger's going across the page, your attention is being pulled through it and it maintains your focus. But the, another reason, if we didn't-- that wasn't reason enough, it's how your neurology is set up. Certain senses work very closely together. So for example, do you love like a, a, a fresh piece of fruit? Like noth-- like right off the vine, right from the farmer's mark. Not something that's been sprayed in wax and sitting in a store for six months, but something like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:55 Yeah, for sure.

Jim Kwik 1:48:56 Have you ever tasted a great tasting, uh, peach?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:48:58 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:48:59 Yeah. And so in actuality, we're not tasting that peach. We're, we're, we're-- What are we, what are we doing? We're smelling that peach. The tongue is not capable of really tasting what a peach tastes like, but the sense of smell and taste are so closely linked that your mind can't perceive the difference. It can perceive the difference when we're sick. If your nose is congested, what do a lot of foods taste like?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:21 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:49:22 Tastes bland, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:24 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:49:24 Because your sense of smell and taste are so closely linked.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:27 Wow.

Jim Kwik 1:49:27 S-so is your sense of sight and your sense of touch and your nervous system. So like if, like, um, you know, we have-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:33 That makes sense

Jim Kwik 1:49:33 ... we have, we have, we have a newborn baby. You know, if I was to-- and starting to like, you know, gras-- But if you're going to infant and take your keys and just sh-shook the keys in front of the infant or, you know, they wonder, stands and say, "Look at, look, look, look at these keys." What would, what would the child naturally do? Grab them, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:49:53 Mm.

Jim Kwik 1:49:53 Because that, they associate looking with, with touching, right? In fact, when people read using their finger, they say they feel more in touch with their reading-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:02 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:50:02 ... over time. Oh, here's, here's another way. If someone loses their sense of sight, how do you read? Use u-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:10 Braille

Jim Kwik 1:50:10 ... braille, touch, right? And so I would encourage everyone to do is just a, just a kind of a, a quick tip, 'cause obviously, you know, we, we do trainings, 30-day trainings.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:19 Yeah, you do full courses-

Jim Kwik 1:50:20 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:20 ... that people can sign up for.

Jim Kwik 1:50:21 Yeah. 10 minutes a day for 30 days, and we'll triple anyone's reading speed with much better comprehension. But even if you just underline the words while you read, you'll feel, again, not only greater speed, a lift of 25, 50%, but you'll feel more in touch with your reading also as well, especially if you're adding the questions and everything else we talked about.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:38 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:50:38 And so I would say everyone could experiment with that. There's-- If people... Can I give a link?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:50:43 Yeah, sure.

Jim Kwik 1:50:44 If people go to jimkwik.com/more, K-W-I-K.com/more, there's actually a free one-hour master class where you c- I'll actually work and walk you through it. You bring a book online, and I'll show you how to do this visually, and I'll show you some really cool shortcuts. But that will boost your reading speed 25, 50%. And that doesn't-- that's not a little bit. That's a lot.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:04 That's a lot.

Jim Kwik 1:51:05 Right? If they say time is money, how many people got a 25, 50% return on their investments last year, right? So it, it really adds up over time, and little by little, a little becomes, it becomes a whole lot.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:17 Yeah. I mean, thanks for sharing that. That's brilliant. I mean, I, I, I guess I would... I've never measured. I would consider myself a quick reader-

Jim Kwik 1:51:26 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:27 ... relative to what I see around me.

Jim Kwik 1:51:29 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:30 But I don't do that. I don't think I put my finger there.

Jim Kwik 1:51:33 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:33 So I'm already really excited because I, I reckon I get through two to three books a week just for this podcast.

Jim Kwik 1:51:42 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:51:43 Right? And I think it's interesting hearing you talk about, uh, learning and reading and, like, I... What, what, what have I intuitively found over five and a half years of doing this show works for me? Well, I don't do-- I never will allow the publisher to send me an electronic book. Like, so it has to be a hard copy.

Jim Kwik 1:52:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:04 It's just, again, I don't want any more excuses to be on a screen.

Jim Kwik 1:52:08 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:08 So it's a hard copy book. And initially, I had to get over this hump of writing in books 'cause initially I was like, "No, I can't. I can't put a colored pen inside this book."

Jim Kwik 1:52:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:21 "I can't underline something. This is like a work of art," you know? But I've, I've got over that.

Jim Kwik 1:52:25 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:25 Like, I will literally with my colored pens-

Jim Kwik 1:52:28 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:28 ... I will read some-- I'll underline key sentences. And of course, I've got some of those questions are built in because I know the guest is coming in two days, right?

Jim Kwik 1:52:38 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:38 So I'm gonna be on the mic.

Jim Kwik 1:52:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:40 So I want to be well prepared. I, I don't have a researcher. I do it all myself.

Jim Kwik 1:52:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:44 So I, I'm reading the book. I'm underlining, uh, key words, key phrases. Sometimes, stroke often, I'll have a journal next to me, and I'll write down key quotes or key ideas.

Jim Kwik 1:52:58 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:52:59 But they're only words or a few words. I don't write questions for my guests. I don't have set questions. I just have themes and ideas that I want to go through. So I let it sort of, I hopefully just breathe organically-

Jim Kwik 1:53:12 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:12 ... and see where we go to in a conversation. And then, I guess roughly one hour before the guest arrives in the studio, you know, give or take, sometimes it's half an hour, sometimes it's 90 minutes before. But I would say on average an hour before the guest comes, I'll look at the notes I made in a journal.

Jim Kwik 1:53:30 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:32 And then I open up this book, which is my sort of podcast book now, and I will just write down key words, key ideas, try and put them in some s- you know-

Jim Kwik 1:53:43 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:43 ... group them in certain areas. Uh, I will use colors.

Jim Kwik 1:53:47 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:53:48 Colors are really important for me. They always have been. Even as a kid when I was revising at school, I've always wanted a black, red, green, and blue pen. And, you know, here's the irony. I, I, I very rarely look at these things when I'm actually in the conversation.

Jim Kwik 1:54:00 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:00 But, uh, they actually-- I think they almost just prime my brain. They almost allow me to consolidate the information that I've absorbed.

Jim Kwik 1:54:10 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:10 And they give me a safety net one hour before a guest arrives in case I ever forget what I'm saying or in case-

Jim Kwik 1:54:17 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:17 ... I run out of things to say, which I don't think I've-- I can't remember the last time I did that. But I don't know. That's kind of a, a brief sort of overview of my process. What does that sound like to you-

Jim Kwik 1:54:27 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:27 ... and how might you improve it?

Jim Kwik 1:54:29 Yeah. And I, I love it. Have you always been... So you're very, you're very good at putting things in action, and you, you, you're very, you're very fast to, to implement things like that. Um, do you tend to be very, um, more intuitive also-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:43 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:54:43 ... in terms of-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:44 Well, I've just done your brain quiz, and you don't know the answer. So we'll go through that in a minute. I'll tell you what my, uh-

Jim Kwik 1:54:48 Okay

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:54:48 ... you know, where we got to with that. But yeah, I would say that's right.

Jim Kwik 1:54:52 Yeah. So you-- All right. So w- when you're talking about a br- a brain quiz, 'cause I'm, I- I'll customize it for what, what we're talking about. So your process obviously works because you've refined it over, you know, lots of episodes and a number of years, right? And so we tend to, with all our learning, as you have a certain level of schema and background information, start making things more elegant. And I really do believe that it's not how smart we are, it's how are we smart. You know, after, I mean, especially in the work we do in education, it's not how smart you are or how smart your significant other or how smart your kids are or how smart your team is, how are they smart? And we all have a preferred way of learning-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:55:32 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 1:55:32 ... and executing, right? Uh, beyond learning styles, um, you mentioned the brain quiz. So over, over the past 12 months, you know, we refined our teaching. And just as there's personalized medicine or personalized nutrition, this is a way of kind of personalizing your learning around how you prefer to learn or lead or live. All right? And we've-- You know, I pulled as inspiration from, you know, Myers-Briggs and left brain, right brain dominance theory and multiple intelligence, uh, theory, um, and all, all these different areas to, to... And we've discerned that there are about four- ... cognitive types. And I think everybody could-- I'll go through them really quick. Everyone could kind of see themselves in that or see friends, like, "Oh, I know what animal that person's gonna be." Um, for you, I w- I would guess it was a, a cheetah if I was to guess. Um, and I, I, I, I made it simple 'cause I-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:56:26 It was.

Jim Kwik 1:56:26 Okay. [chuckles] For me, it's code, C-O-D-E, and, uh, everything is your, your brain code. And people who take this, it only takes a few minutes, like, probably take, like, three or four minutes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:56:37 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:56:38 Five, four minutes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:56:39 Three, four minutes. It's really fun, actually.

Jim Kwik 1:56:40 Yeah. It's, it's-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:56:41 So people can do it for free. They can just go-

Jim Kwik 1:56:42 Yeah. It's, um, mybrainanimal.com.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:56:45 Okay.

Jim Kwik 1:56:45 mybrainanimal.com, and you can see what brain animal you are. Now, the animals are the letters C-O-D-E, code. So the C is the cheetah. The cheetah are your fast actors. They, they implement very well. They, uh, tend to be very intuitive also as well.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:57:04 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:57:04 So you could write notes, but you go by your intuition.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:57:07 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:57:07 You don't have to refer to it. It's just you're, you're in the moment, and you could, and you could, you could, you could pitch and, and toss, right? Back and forth.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:57:14 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:57:14 And I love that because you're such a great listener, and we can go fast-paced 'cause I, I like, I like quickness also as well. You know, it's, it's part of, part of my style. And, uh, and you don't just learn things. You, you put things in action. You know, I, I've seen your show over, over the amount of years and just, like, you are-- you're nailing-- You're just, like, even how, how your platform has grown because you, you're implementing things, and you're just probably thinking, like... And, and you, you thrive in, in fast-paced environments and maybe because of medicine you had to do that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:57:44 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 1:57:44 You know, it, it trained you to be able to, you know, to be quick on your toes and be a quick thinker, right? The O are your owls, and we're not any one of them. You have a primary and a secondary, um, 'cause we're a, a blend. Nobody's 100% any of these animals. But it gives you a filter, just like when I was going through the Limitless model, of how to look at transformation, how to look at leadership, how to look at learning. The O, owls, are-- owls represent logic, right? They, they love data, and you could, you could primary, you could di-- that might be your secondary. You, you love data, facts and figures and formulas. You, white papers.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:58:18 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:58:18 You know, you like to look at that, at the, the evidence there. And, and now, by the way, like, they, these are two people that could also blend, but they could also learn differently, right? Or be s- or they invest differently.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:58:30 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:58:30 Right? A, a cheetah could invest in, in certain ways, you know, and to maybe tolerate a lit- a little bit of risk, do things on intuition. You know, an owl is more, "Look, you know, I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see these numbers," and so on, do their diligence. The, okay, the D in code, cheetah, owl, the D are your dolphins. These are your creative visionaries. These are great problem solvers. They have an exceptional ability to, to do pattern recognition also as well, as you can imagine. Uh, they have great imagination. They're creators.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:00 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:59:00 Right? And then finally, the E are your elephants, and your elephants, I would say they're, they're highly empathetic, strong interpersonal skills.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:10 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 1:59:10 Uh, they thrive in, in collaborations, team environments also as well. And this is a, a highly abbreviated, you know, uh, version. But when people go, we've designed very specific questions, and usually people know which answer it is, or they struggle between, "Is it this one or this one?" Right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:26 Yeah. I didn't overthink it.

Jim Kwik 1:59:27 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:27 I just thought, "What was the first one that's-"

Jim Kwik 1:59:29 And that's, and that's the perfect way of doing it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:31 Yeah

Jim Kwik 1:59:31 ... 'cause that's what a cheetah would do. [chuckles] Um, and then afterwards-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:34 I, I like the idea of being a cheetah, I must say. [chuckles]

Jim Kwik 1:59:36 And then, yeah, when, when you get, um, you'll also get, uh, you know, a report for you, and we, we customize personalized learning. Depending on what brain animal is your dominant and your primary, this is how I would go about reading. This is how I'd go about studying or note-taking or memorizing something.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:55 Oh, wow.

Jim Kwik 1:59:55 Or-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:55 So, so depending on which four you are-

Jim Kwik 1:59:56 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:59:56 ... the relevance says that you'll send people who do that quiz online, like, a personalized way-

Jim Kwik 2:00:02 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:00:03 ... of tackling life, I guess.

Jim Kwik 2:00:04 Even, even, even things like goal setting. Like, a cheetah, like, they, they go in sprints. So we said, you know, like, even recommendation for goal setting and goal getting, you'll see there's a report on, on a cheetah creating, uh, clear s- short-term goals, right? Going from here to here to here because that's, that would be aligned with your personal performance cognitive type.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:00:22 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 2:00:23 And it's interesting. And then I, I also weave in stories in there of these four animals, kind of like a child's book, where you could see these, these four animals at play at school or at work, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:00:33 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:00:33 Because it's interesting when you have your team do it, 'cause we got a lot of insight also, um, 'cause we also see the back end, all the numbers in terms of what percent, you know, are, are, are, are each in different environments, if I speak at a leadership conference or I speak at a entrepreneur event or a student event. Um, but it, our team, it was interesting, you know, where our customers, like, our customer experience people were really in that, in that empathetic kind of, kind of space, you know. And our finance person was clearly an owl. Like, it's, it's interesting-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:01:02 Yeah

Jim Kwik 2:01:03 ... because I also show people, I give them sample careers where you would thrive because based on your predilection for logic or, or, or speed or, you know, empathy and so on. So it, it's kind of fun. It's at mybrainanimal.com, and, you know, we're, we're loving, we're loving this because it informs. I think in order to be happy, and I'm looking forward to having you on, on my show and talk about a h- a happy mind and, you know, very full life. In order to be happy, I feel like you need two things. You need to have the curiosity to know yourself-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:01:37 Hmm

Jim Kwik 2:01:37 ... and then the courage to be yourself, meaning that, you know, curiosity to know yourself. That's why we go to, you go to therapy, you know, uh, you journal, you do the inner work, right? And you get to know yourself, you know, your identity, what you believe in, what you stand for, what you value in, you know, in your life, what's important to you, what you live for. But once you have that, you know, I think a lot of people have, have done some of that work.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:02:02 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:02:03 And, and it's deep work. But then h- having the courage to be yourself. The, so having the curiosity to know yourself, but then having the courage-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:02:10 Yeah

Jim Kwik 2:02:10 ... to be that person.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:02:11 Love that.

Jim Kwik 2:02:12 You know, because sometimes... You know, I spent a lot-- I lost my, um- So when I had my head injury, my parents were working a lot, so I was-- I had a lot of... And three accidents before the age of twelve. My grandmother was my primary, you know, caregiver. Um, she, when I was going through these issues, sh-she started showing early signs of dementia and the passing of Alzheimer's. She would call me by my father's name, um, you know, uh, say something she just said and just that situation. Um, so, so we donated, um, a good portion of the proceeds to this book to not only build schools around the world, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, healthcare, clean water, build this f- this actual f-facilities, teachers, um, but also Alzheimer's research for women because women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than, than men. And yet a lot of the research is done on male brains, treatment is on male brains. So that's something I'm very passionate about. But that informed what I would do as a living, you know, in terms of education and brain health, you know, for this. But I spent a lot of time because of it. I didn't have the, um... I lost all my grandparents very early. Um, I, I spent a lot of time in senior centers, in nursing homes, um, because I, number one, I help polish off memories 'cause that, that's my superpower. But I also, I get to hear wisdom, you know, that I didn't have a lot growing up from generations, and I feel like the life we live are the lessons we teach, right? The life we live are the lessons we teach, you know, people around us. And th- and somebody who's been on this, uh, you know, on this, on this earth longer than me, they have lessons.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:03:43 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:03:43 A-and it could be lessons of examples or warnings, right? But, uh, lessons either way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:03:48 Yeah, yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:03:48 But I also hear these amazing stories, but I also hear, when it gets very intimate, some regret creeping in. You know, they talk about, uh, you know... And the regret is always not what they did, but what they didn't do, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:04:01 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 2:04:01 And we know that, the regrets of dying and... But s-somehow the regrets I could sum up is they somehow shrunk them, their life, um, in some way or limited their life because of what other people would think. They didn't pursue that relationship that they were really infatuated, but, but because of what society would think about that relationship.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:04:20 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:04:20 Or they pursued a, a career path because it was expected by their parents or some, some, some form of that. And I, I just wanna remind people who hear that, that when you're taking your final breaths, it's not a fun conversation because I tend to be more positive, but I'm gonna be very practical. When we're taking our final breaths, think, just like how I fast-forward at the end of my day, you know, it's like, "What three things happened personally and professionally if I really said I was happy?" You, you deal with your life also. Because when you're taking your final fast-forward to the end of your days, at that time when you're taking your final breath, none of other people's opinions, their expectations are gonna matter. You know, n-none, none of our fears are gonna matter. What's gonna matter is how we learned, how we laughed, how we loved, you know, how we lived, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:05:05 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:05:06 And I'm, and I just wanna remind people, you know, the whole idea of beginning with the end in mind. You know, for, for me, somebody asked me recently, like, you know, 'cause I'm, I was, uh, you know, new, new father, and I was saying, like, "I wanna do this," and people are like, you know, "You wanna make your son proud?" "Yeah, I wanna, I wanna make my son proud. I wanna, I wanna make, you know, parents proud," all of that. You know, the two pe-- you know, my, my, my wife, my son. But when I think about it, the two people I wanna make proud, really, the nine-year-old boy that was going through all those challenges. You know, like, that was being teased and bullied, called broken. You know, I wanna look back. I do these mental experiments all the time. I was like, "I wanna make that, you know, the, the nine-year-old me proud." And then also fast-forward ninety-nine, hopefully, [chuckles] you know, I'd be doing this a long time. I wanna make that guy proud also as well, you know? And so, you know, that, that, that, that's what I can control.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:05:58 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:05:59 You know? And I, I just feel like the life we live, again, are lessons what we teach, and I think we're all on this quest, you know-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:06:04 Yeah

Jim Kwik 2:06:05 ... to the, you know, to realize and reveal our, our, our fullest potential. This book, I, I, over thirty years, you know, I had an opportunity to scale my business, infomercials and franchises and train the trainer and, oh, you know, like all this kind of media, book deals. I never said yes. And in twenty nineteen, I got in a car accident. I'll talk about this. And I, um, you create a very safe space, so I just appreciate you. Um, I almost died, and, um, and it made me think about that, put everything in perspective, 'cause I never wanna be famous, right? I wanna help people, but I don't need to be known for it, just 'cause I'm very introverted and I'm just... I like to, you know, do things that, like that. Um, and that helps me have some kind of harmony. Not balance, but harmony, kind of like an orchestra, kind of. Not everyone has equal amount of everything, but they play music and it's just your art. Um, but when I had that kind of near-death experience, I, I signed the book deal that's been in my inbox for, like, ten years, you know? Um, because I was-- it made me think about what I leave behind, and it really kind of made me think, you know? And you, you might have, you know, have this experience or know people who have had that kind of near-death experience, made me just think of, of legacy, you know? And my next book is, and it's, it's different. It wasn't inspired by death. It was experienced by the birth of my son. So now it's bir- it's inspired by life and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:07:26 Wow

Jim Kwik 2:07:26 ... 'cause I wanna, I wanna, I wanna leave the world brighter, you know, for, for, for him. And it's just become very personal for me-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:07:33 Yeah

Jim Kwik 2:07:33 ... in terms of clarity of mission, building better, brighter brains, no brain left behind, but also depth, you know, of, of purpose.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:07:41 Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, Jim. And it, it, it is a great book, and I can see why it's been so popular and helping so many people. It's really fascinating to hear where it came from, where, where that energy came from. So I, I really do appreciate you sharing that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:07:56 Just before we finish off talking about building better brains-

Jim Kwik 2:07:59 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:00 ... um, on a slightly, I guess, light-hearted note.

Jim Kwik 2:08:03 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:03 Juggling is something I've seen you talk about before.

Jim Kwik 2:08:06 Oh, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:06 You know, why is juggling so good? And then something I, I haven't heard you talk about, but I'm interested because I play with my kids regularly table tennis or ping pong.

Jim Kwik 2:08:16 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:18 Juggling?

Jim Kwik 2:08:18 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:19 What's the deal? Why is it good?

Jim Kwik 2:08:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:21 Uh, does it matter if we're any good or not?

Jim Kwik 2:08:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:24 And then maybe table tennis or ping pong-

Jim Kwik 2:08:26 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:26 ... is that also good for our brains, and why?

Jim Kwik 2:08:28 Yeah. There's, there's a study done here, uh, Oxford University, saying jugglers actually have bigger brains. They create, uh, more white matter. I, I believe as your body moves, your brain grooves. I think the, the number one reason we have a brain is to control our movement-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:08:43 Mm-hmm

Jim Kwik 2:08:44 ... which is interesting to watch. You know, uh, my, my son starting to learn how to crawl, and we know that cru- those cross laterals are very important for brain development, and, you know, the communication between left and right brain, corpus callosum, that kind of bridging station. So, you know, as you move your body, it challenges different parts of your brain. So it's not just a, a mind-body connection. There's a body-mind connection, that even using your opposite hand, you know, will stimulate different parts of your brain.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:09:12 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 2:09:12 Even when I tr- I challenge ... You know, for people who are just alphas and they're very achievement-oriented, try using your finger opposite hand. Like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:09:21 Like speed reading.

Jim Kwik 2:09:21 Yeah. Try using your left. If you're ... You know, 11% of popu- population's left-handed, but if you're listening to this and you're right-handed, try using your left hand, 'cause potentially, what if it could stimulate the right side of your brain? You know, they say that your left side is very ... And this is oversimplification.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:09:37 Yeah, for sure. [laughs]

Jim Kwik 2:09:38 [laughs] Logical, but your right side more imaginative, creative. But just imagine using your left hand to stimulate different parts, or eating, and, and it'll make you more mindful certainly. Um, in the beginning it might be difficult, 'cause you're focused on doing it right, 'cause I used to ... Like if I asked you to write your ha- your name with your fr- opposite hand, it probably won't be so, so good. And that's how I see learning also. If I ask everyone to write their first and last name ... Actually, you could do it now. Write your first and last name on, on a piece of paper. And then, um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10:04 Oh my, with my left hand?

Jim Kwik 2:10:05 No, no, no. With your, with your dominant hand.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10:06 With, with my dominant hand.

Jim Kwik 2:10:07 Yeah. And then when you're done, switch hands, and then below it, try below that with your opposite hand. You know, and as you're doing it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10:17 Oh, wow

Jim Kwik 2:10:17 ... and I'm challenging k- people. You know, that second one, as you're doing it, it takes longer. It, um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10:25 [laughs]

Jim Kwik 2:10:25 ... feels weird.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10:26 Oh, wow.

Jim Kwik 2:10:27 And, um, [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10:30 This is-

Jim Kwik 2:10:31 And the quality is probably not as good. So those are the three differences, right? You can just leave it at that. That I- I- I get it. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:10:38 [laughs] I think I get it too.

Jim Kwik 2:10:40 But, um, so the second time, it takes longer, um, the qu- it was uncomfortable, and the quality is not quite as good. And I often feel like when people are trying to learn something, they're trying to l- and they're not getting it, even if they're interested in the topic, maybe they're just not ... Maybe the way you prefer to learn it is different than the w- the way the teacher prefers to teach it. And I'm taking my f- hands and kind of passing them. There's no connection. It's like two ships in the night.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:11:05 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 2:11:06 And there's no connection because how you learn it is different how to teach it. So maybe it's a learning disability or maybe it's a teaching disability, or it's just not that communication where, where you have-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:11:15 Yeah

Jim Kwik 2:11:15 ... unification and connected. And so maybe you're try- Oh, here's another way of putting it. Maybe you're trying to learn it with the opposite hand, so it takes longer, it feels uncomfortable-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:11:24 Mm

Jim Kwik 2:11:24 ... and the quality, the end result, is not quite as good as if you were gonna use your dominant hand. And that's what, going back to the, the brain quiz. Once you know what your strengths are, you can take the judgment out, you know. And y- you're not judging a fish, you know, by its ability to climb a tree. You know, that whole saying.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:11:39 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 2:11:39 Um, you know, y- you could honor your own strengths and know that you could also develop your weaknesses, certainly, 'cause we give you protocols on how to be more owl or be more, uh, cheetah, and, and so on. But, um, but going back to the using your opposite hand or something, or table tennis. Table tennis is wonderful for the brain. I've had multiple matches with, you know, Dr. Daniel Amen. It's his favorite brain training.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:03 Really?

Jim Kwik 2:12:03 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:03 Table tennis?

Jim Kwik 2:12:04 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:04 Oh, this-

Jim Kwik 2:12:04 Table tennis. It's literally what he says is the number one physical activity for the brain. Uh, thinking speed, reaction time, hand-eye coordination. Uh, it's a good cardio if you're doing it r- well. But, um, I, I love table tennis.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:15 We, we, me and my son particularly play some pretty-

Jim Kwik 2:12:19 Inten-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:19 ... good, you know-

Jim Kwik 2:12:20 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:20 ... gains of reaction speed, everything.

Jim Kwik 2:12:22 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:22 And I'm, A, I'm enjoying it. I'm having b-

Jim Kwik 2:12:25 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:25 ... I'm having a blast. But, B, it's kind of like I, I know I've read somewhere this is good for our brains, and sometimes we'll also play left-handed.

Jim Kwik 2:12:34 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:34 So we're both right-handed.

Jim Kwik 2:12:36 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:36 Because I know it feels different, but after a while you start to groove-

Jim Kwik 2:12:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:40 ... and, and get it. And I'm like, "This is good for my brain. I know it is." In fact, there's a, um, you know, arguably the world's greatest ever snooker player, a, a chap called Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Jim Kwik 2:12:50 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:12:51 Now, I don't know if he's, like, completely right-handed and then he learnt this with his weak hand, or whether he's ambidextrous. I, I couldn't tell you that, but he can play almost as good-

Jim Kwik 2:13:02 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:03 ... with his left hand.

Jim Kwik 2:13:04 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:04 And actually, when he initially started doing this in competition, some, some of his opponents wouldn't shake their ha- shake his hand. They thought he was taking the Mickey. They thought he was being unsportsmanlike.

Jim Kwik 2:13:14 Wow.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:14 "Oh, I can ..." You know, like the, the quip, "Oh, I can beat..." You know, like you might do with your mates when you, when you're younger. "I can beat you playing with my left hand, mates" kind of thing. But actually he's learnt he can play both-handed.

Jim Kwik 2:13:25 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:25 And so on one side of the table if someone has to use a rest because of just the w- just the mechanics, he doesn't have to. He just flips to his other hand-

Jim Kwik 2:13:33 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:33 ... because he needs to use the rest, which is, is really interesting.

Jim Kwik 2:13:36 Yeah. I love ... I, I didn't grow up with, uh, a ping pong or table tennis, uh, in, in, in, in our, in our home, but, uh, it's something that I enjoy now. We ha- we have one in our home and, you know, I, I ... When people come and they're decent at it, I, I'll play left. I'm right-handed, but I play left-handed. And I've noticed that my left hand is actually getting, in some ways, my slice is better than, uh, my backhand is better than my forehand, like my, my dominant hand.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:13:59 Yeah. Oh.

Jim Kwik 2:14:00 And so yeah, table tennis, uh, ballroom dancing, uh, juggling, all of that is very stimulating for the brain. The juggling, going back to it- You could watch a video. I'm not-- I, um, I could juggle, right? But I'm not juggling swords and flaming, like, ch-chainsaws. But you could watch a YouTube video. What I do-- A couple tips on this, though. The reason why I just like juggling besides the building better brains is, um, it-it's g- nice to challenge yourself. It's, you know, getting this end result because I feel like it's a good metaphor for life because how many of us don't feel like we're j- we're, we're juggling everything in life, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:14:31 Yeah, yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:14:31 But the other part is it forces-- It actually helps with your reading, interesting enough, going back to speed reading. Because if I'm juggling three balls up in the air, I don't-- I have two eyes. I can't look at all three balls with just two eyes, right? So I have to, instead of my foveal vision, like really narrowing-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:14:48 Mm.

Jim Kwik 2:14:48 -I have to soften my gaze to get more of my, uh, perceptual s- vision, right? Be able to see more, my field of, of, of, uh, of, of focus. And that's the kind of focus, similarly, I noticed when I started teaching juggling, is that I read. Because when you look at a-- and I'm opening a book. If you look at this word, liver, right? You look at that word liver, so you have to-- There's about ten words per line, as we mentioned. Uh, flush tox-toxins from the liver. Then there's something called fixations. So this is what keeps people-- another thing that keeps people reading slow. When you're doing a fixation, that means a fixation is an eye stop. So if there are ten words per line, you're fixating on each word, you're making ten stops.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:15:31 Mm.

Jim Kwik 2:15:31 And it's kind of like if you're driving on a road-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:15:34 Keep pressing the brake.

Jim Kwik 2:15:35 Yeah. It's like doom, boom, boom. It's that-- or traffic. It's like boom, boom ten times. As opposed to if I look at, you know, the word here and I could see the word to the left and to the right, or you know, and then-- So I could s-soften my gaze with my peripheral vision, see to the left and to the right, and maybe see three or four words at a time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:15:54 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:15:55 So then it only takes two, three max fixations to get across the page. So instead of, you know, te-ten stops, it's less traffic. It's just like one, two, and then I'm done. And I go like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:05 But yeah, can I just say, it's just amazing that you're unpacking the art of reading. You know, for, for many of us, we learnt how to read at school or from our parents, and then we've never given it any thought. I haven't. I just open a book and read-

Jim Kwik 2:16:18 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:18 ... but I'm already thinking, "I can use my finger now."

Jim Kwik 2:16:21 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:21 "Wow, I'm-- I think I'm pretty quick anyway. Let's see what happens when I-"

Jim Kwik 2:16:24 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:25 "-start using my finger." And now I'm thinking-

Jim Kwik 2:16:26 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:27 -"Am I, you know, super focused on one or two words, or can I soften everything?"

Jim Kwik 2:16:32 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:33 "Be more relaxed and, you know, have that more peripheral vision?" Two, two-

Jim Kwik 2:16:36 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:36 ... practical things that I can implement-

Jim Kwik 2:16:38 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:38 ... straight away.

Jim Kwik 2:16:38 And then in order to do that, you have to relax, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:41 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:16:41 So when I'm juggling like this, I, I open and I expand so I could see this, you know, field of play, so I could s- I could take everything in. Same thing when I'm looking at a page, you know, or, or a line. And then so-- And also that relaxed state is not putting me in fight or flight, right? Sometimes when we're so narrow-focused on something that-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:16:58 Yeah, no, I love it.

Jim Kwik 2:16:58 And so-- And then it's li-- And it's more taxing when you're looking at, like, you know-- Think about your-- even just the, the muscles in your eye having to go from da, da, da, da. And then sometimes what we're doing is we're regressing. We're back skipping. Have you ever noticed you reread words-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:17:11 [chuckles] Yeah

Jim Kwik 2:17:12 ... or go to-- or reread whole lines, and that takes up a lot of time. And I wanna honor what you, what you know, what you, you know, the self-reflection and the awareness that, yeah, reading is a skill, and it can be improved through training. But when's the last time we took a class called reading? We were six? So the difficulty and demand has increased, uh, tremendously, but how we actually read something is the same way as we did as a, as a, as a, as a child.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:17:37 Yeah.

Jim Kwik 2:17:37 And we haven't upgraded those skills. And that, that's why I think this is so important. I, I'll tell you the big thing in terms of what-- And by the way, when you understand your, your peripheral vision, then you don't even have to go across the page. You could indent, you know, a handful of whatever centimeters to the left and to the right and in between. So you didn't even have to go all the way across. You could just stay in the middle and still see what's to the left and right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:18:00 So good.

Jim Kwik 2:18:00 And there's another-- save another twenty-five percent, right? And this adds up every single day. You're getting that time back. The other thing is the, the thing that's actually challenging the most for readers. Have you ever noticed when you're reading something, you hear that inner voice inside your head reading along with you? You hear that voice inside your head? Hopefully, it's your own voice.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:18:18 [laughs]

Jim Kwik 2:18:19 It's not like somebody else's voice. The reason why it's a challenge is if you have to say all the words inside your mind in order to understand, that means your reading speed is limited to your talking speed, but not your thinking speed.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:18:31 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 2:18:31 Right? The reason why most people read two hundred to two hundred and fifty words per minute is that's the average rate of speech. And can you understand faster? Of course, but you can't talk that fast. So let me ask you the underlining. Like I said, we're reevaluating what we learned. Do you need to say words, right, like, uh, computer, New York City, in order to understand what those words are?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:18:57 No.

Jim Kwik 2:18:58 No. Because you've seen them how many times? A hundred thousand times.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:19:01 Mm.

Jim Kwik 2:19:01 And th- they're called sight words. Words that you've seen thousands of times, you know by sight, you don't have to pronounce by sound. And ninety-five percent of what we're reading on a regular basis are sight words. Just like when you see traffic signs or a stop sign and it says stop. You don't say stop, but you understand what it means.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:19:20 Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik 2:19:20 Right? And so n- that's most of the words. And s-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:19:23 Could, could this be one of the reasons why I'm-- I, I don't-- I haven't done this enough to, to say this for sure, but I'm not-- I think, like, sometimes when I try audiobooks, like I love listening to podcasts-

Jim Kwik 2:19:37 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:19:38 ... but I'm not sure I love listening to audiobooks.

Jim Kwik 2:19:40 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:19:40 Like I much prefer real books.

Jim Kwik 2:19:43 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:19:44 And I wonder if that's because I think I'm a quick reader. Do I maybe find-

Jim Kwik 2:19:51 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:19:51 ... like the audiobook too slow for the speed that I-

Jim Kwik 2:19:55 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:19:55 ... like to go at? Could that be a reason?

Jim Kwik 2:19:56 Yeah. And I'll, I'll give you a couple distinctions. Um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 2:19:58 But, but I love podcasts.

Jim Kwik 2:19:59 Yeah. So some people-- Like, let's, let- let's, uh, deconstruct this, unpack it. So some people will listen to