 Welcome to the Dr. Gendry podcast. Well, you've probably seen it in the movies. The hero flips through a book at lightning speed and then recalls details only a careful reader could have discovered. Now, most people think that's all fiction, Hollywood fantasy. But my guest today says it's not only possible to optimize the human brain to read faster, remember better and accelerate learning. It's actually something everyone can do. Holy cow. So Jim Quick is the world renowned brain and memory coach consulted by Fortune 500 companies, billionaire CEOs, celebrities, and even Harvard University. He's also the CEO of Quick Learning, the host of the Quick Brain podcast. Now the New York Times bestselling author of Limitless. Upgrade your brain, learn anything faster, and unlock your exceptional life. So on today's episode, Jim and I are going to talk about what makes a better brain, how technology may actually be holding back our minds, and Jim's number one technique for learning more effectively today. So Jim, it's so exciting to have you on the podcast. Thanks for, thanks for being here. This is great. Dr. Gendry, it's a real pleasure and thank you everybody who's tuning in for this godbrainy conversation. All right. So I know everybody knows you, but there might be one human being listening who is not familiar with you or your work. Tell me a little bit about your story. I really enjoyed reading about it. How did you become so obsessed with optimized learning? Well, my inspiration really was my desperation. When people see me on stages, do these memory feats where I'll memorize 50 people's names in an audience or 100 numbers or 100 words randomly, get selected in an audience forwards and backwards. 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 who's listening could do that and even more. And I know that's a very big claim. Yet we just weren't taught how to do that. School is a wonderful place to learn what to math, history, science, Spanish, but there weren't a lot of classes on how to learn those things, how to focus, how to remember. And I know this is possible because my mess became my message. I grew up with some severe learning challenges. When I was five years old in kindergarten, I had a very bad fall in class. I was rushed to the emergency room, traumatic brain injury. I had actually three of them before the age of 12. I had very slow processing issues. Teachers would repeat themselves numerous times. I would pretend to understand, but I didn't really understand. After my accident, my parents said I was not quite the same, whereas before I was very energized and very curious, playful. I became very shut down. I had poor focus, poor memory, took me an extra few years just to learn how to read. I remember defining moment when I was nine years old. I was really struggling in class, holding the rest of the students back, didn't understand the lessons. And I was being teased for it, almost borderline bullied. And a teacher came to my defense and said, that's the boy with a broken brain. I think she had good intentions, meaning I had some challenges that she was pointing out. But all I remembered was that phrase, broken brain. And adults have to be very careful with their external words because they become a student's internal words. So every single time I did badly on an exam, which was all the time, every time I wasn't picked for sports, which was all the time, I would always say, oh, it's because I had the broken brain. So that label became my limit. And I struggled all through school, elementary school, middle school, junior high and high school. And eventually around age 18, I hit a wall. I just couldn't work any harder. And I end up being hospitalized because I was just living in the library and passed out. And I fell down a flight of stairs, hit my head again. And I just thought I thought I died, I was wasting away. And I just started to put my mind towards another way. And I started to study this idea of meta learning, learning how to learn. I started studying ancient mnemonics, memory tools and techniques, speed reading. I want to understand how the brain works, so I could work my brain better. I want to understand how my memory works, so I could work my memory better. I started studying adult learning theory, multiple intelligence theory, Howard Gardner's work out of Harvard, and these different things. And about 60 days into it, I hit a tipping point where a light switch flipped on. And I started to really understand things for the first time in my life. I started to have this deep level of concentration, this ability to recall and process information better. And my grades shot up, but also my life just shot up also. And because I couldn't help but help other people, because I didn't want other people to struggle the way I did, I remember I got to work with a tutor, a young student, she was a freshman in college, and she read 30 books in 30 days. And I wanted to find out not how, I taught her how to read and understand those books, but I wanted to know why. And I found out her mother was actually diagnosed with terminal cancer, was only given a couple months to live. And the books she was reading were books to save her mom's life and books on health and wellness and diet. And she ended up doing so. And when I found that out, you know, months later, it just ignited a spark in me. I realized that if knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower. And it's a superpower we all have inside of us. It's just, we weren't necessarily shown how. And so I dedicated my life, this was over 28 years ago, every single day since then, to help people to unlock the genius that they have inside of them to show people how to have a better brain so they could have a brighter life. So let's go back for a second. So you're spending 60 days deciphering all this wisdom, if you will. And then something clicked, what clicked? You're a, you've got a bad brain, you're a slow learner. What clicked in those 60 days that was the aha moment for you? There was a moment in class that I recall, I was in a lecture center. And back then, they had overhead projectors, right? Not the fancy equipment that are in classrooms right now and where teachers and professors would draw markers on there. And they put up something in the lecture center. And just as a backstory, my two biggest challenges growing up were learning, and my superpower really was being invisible. Because I had these challenges with learning, I would always find a way to sit behind the tall kid in class or sit all the way in the back and really shrink. And my superpower was being invisible. Because when you don't have the answers, you don't want to be called on, you don't want to give a book report, you don't want the spotlight. And, and my, which is interesting, because my two biggest challenges were learning and public speaking. So the universe has a sense of humor, because that's, that's what I do for a living is public speak on this thing called learning. But in class, you know, in an auditorium, lecture center full of hundreds of people, I was very, you know, sit in the back and very, very quiet never raised my hand. But they put on something on the overhead. And, you know, I started laughing out loud. And I would never do that. I would never moat. I was very introverted, but beyond introvert, I was very shy. And I started laughing and everyone turned around the look at me. And I became self conscious because it was just a knee jerk reaction. And then about 10 or 15 seconds into it, other people started to laugh and there was this wave of laughter because of what was on the what I had read on the overhead faster than other people in the class. And now that's where I realized that that things were clicking. But it wasn't over those 60 days, I was learning studying technique, no taking techniques, like, you know, memory tools to be able to so it wasn't it was a gradual change. But I shifted my focus, you know, I found out that school is a wonderful place to learn what to learn, math, history, science, Spanish. But there weren't a lot of classes on how to learn those things, how to focus, how how to study it, how to read it better, how to how to critically think how to how to remember, you know, I they teach you three hours in school writing, reading, arithmetic spelling, obviously, is not one of those hours. But what about remembering? What about retention? What about recall? Socrates said learning is remembering. And so I started studying those things. And because I wasn't getting making much progress with my traditional studies. But I after I sharpened the saw and learned how to learn, then I went back to my studies. And it was a totally different experience. And I think the big gap in schools, and it's not a slight against teachers, I teachers are some of the most committed, compassionate, caring individuals out there, they're maybe not compensated, as well as they maybe should be. My mother became a school teacher to help me with my learning difficulties. It's just the system hasn't changed much like a lot of systems haven't evolved as much. You know, we live in an age of autonomous electric cars, we have rockets that are going to Mars. But sometimes when it comes to traditional education, it's more like a horse and carriage. And it hasn't advanced as much as the world has advanced. And so my mission is to be able to fill in those gaps. I feel like more people upgrade their phones and their apps on their phones than they do the most important technology, which is their mind. And so I wrote limitless as an owner's manual for our brain to be able to learn and be able to accomplish the things that are important to us. Okay, so in the book, you talk about having a better brain. So I mean, come on, how do I get one? Okay. Oh, okay. I just got it. Help me through that. What the heck? How do you get a better brain? So I mean, part of it is the software. So I teach people in the half of the book is on methodology, how to read faster, how to remember names, how to be able to focus and concentrate to those things. But then also it's the hardware taking care of the hardware. And so, you know, when I do lectures at places like the Cleveland Clinic or institutions working with doctors or caregivers or researchers or patients themselves, we find that we could have a considerable impact that certain things aren't fixed, like our memory is not fixed like our shoe size. And in the book, I kind of dissolve some of the prominent lies, if you will, when it comes to learning. And a lie for me stands for a limited idea entertained that gene like one of those lies would be that genius is born when I make a case that genius is actually built, that if somebody is extraordinary in a certain area, it comes through training, it could come through discipline and effort and using the right strategies. And part of that is just maintaining optimal, you know, brain health. And so things that we focus on that we talk about in the book about how to have a better brain, things that are just common sense, but not often common practice, things like a good brain diet, you know, eating those foods that are good for your brain, because I do believe we are what we eat. And you write a lot about this, you know, in depth. And the foods that are harmful also as well to our brain, things like also optimizing our sleep. We know, especially for our brains, it's, if people have long term memory issues, I would check your sleep because I didn't realize this until 10 years ago, and I had my first sleep study. But I was I was averaging only a couple hours of sleep a night. And about 10 years ago, after an overnight sleep study, in a clinic, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, where I stopped breathing over 200 and almost 20 times a night. In each episode was more than 10 seconds. And the doctor at UCLA was saying like no wonder you're not sleeping. It's like somebody coming in every night with putting a pillow over your face 200 times. And I had this obstructive apnea. And so sleep, though, could can interfere with your long term memory when we're consolidating short to long term memory, it could have an effect on, you know, when you're sleeping, you could potentially clean out the beta amyloid plaque that could lead the brain into challenges. It's I'm very passionate about that because I lost my grandmother when I was going through my broken brain phase in elementary school. I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's. And so we're donating actually 100% of the proceeds of the book to build schools for children in need for schools, teachers, school books, healthcare, clean water, and also Alzheimer's research, especially women's Alzheimer's because of in memory of my grandmother, where females are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's as men. And so, but going back to sleep, that's kind of like when the sewage system kind of kicks in when we're sleeping, and also dreaming also getting good sleep is important for dreaming, meaning that we find that it's a myth that your brain shuts off at night. In some ways, it's more active. And what is it doing? It's not only consolidating short to long term memory and integrating, but it's, you know, it's through we've probably spent about 20 years of our life sleeping, maybe three to five years dreaming. And some people might know this, but amazing inventions and works of art and literature came from dream states. Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein in her dream. Paul McCartney came up with a song yesterday in his dream. A chemist came up with a framework at the periodic table in his dream. And so what are we dreaming about? So I have processes for remembering our dreams and doing those things. But good brain diet, sleep, stress management, we know that chronic stress has the potential of actually shrinking our brains. And not only that, but the chronic fear that's going on with everything in the world, chronic fear actually makes us more susceptible and compromises our immune systems susceptible to colds, the flu's to viruses, whole area of science, psycho neuroimmunology. And I think it's very important for people to stand guard to their what's going in their brain, in their mind, because there's an algorithm just like there's an algorithm to social media. If you engage with all of your going out on Instagram and engaging with all the cat posts, watching all the cat videos, commenting all the cat videos, sharing all the cop videos, then Instagram shows you a whole lot more cats, right? And you feel like your whole feet is cats because it's giving you what you're engaging with. I find that metaphor that metaphor is same with our mind that our mind has an algorithm. And if we're always just focusing on what's dark and scary and threatening, which you know, your minds are being hijacked by the media, you know, because you have to as a hunt, as a survival mechanism, pay attention to what could be threatening to you. But if people are overindulging and what's dark, primarily our brains are deletion devices, meaning that at any given time, we could be paying attention to a billion stimuli. And we can't let all that in, we would go, we would go, we weigh too much overload. So primarily, we're deleting and generalizing, keeping information out. And what do we let in is the things that we're engaging with that part of our reticular activating system, we're activating our focus on the things that we care about. And if we just start engaging with all the darkness, then just like that algorithm with cats, we just start seeing more of the darkness, the challenges we have a finite conscious mind, according to George Miller at Harvard, seven plus or minus two bits of conscious information. And if you're paying attention to all that's threatening, then you don't have bandwidth of pay attention to opportunity to gratitude, which you'd be grateful to possibility. And so control that input and have stress management coping tools, whether it's meditation, whether whatever people subscribe to. And so those are just a handful of things we talk about brain nutrients, because the brain has, while it's 2% of our body mass, it requires approximately 20% of the nutrients. And there's an area of study I mentioned in the book about neuro nutrition, potentially the brain has different, slightly different requirements than the rest of the body. And so are we supplementing and things like omega threes DHA, we talk about clean environment and how that's important to your brain, whether it's the quality of the air, whether it also the brain loves a clean environment. We know this when we make our bed or we clean our desk off, or we clean off the screen and put everything in file folders. Our external world is a reflection of our internal world. And we might reminder to Marie Kondo, our minds, what also affects our brains are the people we spend time with. You know, there's this phrase that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. And when you study the nervous system, we have these things called mirror neurons, where creates empathy, where we imitate our surroundings, and we start adapting to and adopting the attitudes, the language patterns, the habits of the people around us. So it's not just our biological networks, and our neurological networks, it has a lot to do with our social networks, in terms of what they're eating, if you know, if our friend's friend is smoking, it's going to have a greater influence on us also as well, also protecting our brain. If you want your better brain, you know, having had a number of head traumas protect your brain, avoid those extreme sports. I wish I was better supervised when I was a child, but wear a helmet. Another thing that's great for our brain is new learnings. You know, we've discovered so much about the human brain in the past couple of decades, more than the previous, you know, couple of centuries. You know, when we're looking at things like neuroplasticity, one of the ways that the brain loves novelty, it helps us create new connections, just like if you want to build a muscle, you give it novelty and nutrition. Well, same thing with your mental muscles, you stimulate it with new ideas, it makes new connections, you feed it the right nutrition, you give it the right rest. And so I guess what I do is kind of like a personal trainer would make your physical muscles stronger, more energized, more pliable, more flexible. I want people's mental muscles, their focus, their memory and so on to be stronger, to be more energized, more agile and flexible. So in the book, you talk about the three M's. Help me with the three M's. Oh, I love this. This is really the heart of the book. The last M is are the methodologies and it's interesting. I mean, you've gone through this process repeatedly. This is my first book in 28 years of teaching and when I first wrote it, the first draft, it was 100% on the last M, which are methods. It was purely a self-help book on how to do these things, how to read faster, how to remember what you read, how to give a TED talk from recall, how to critically think and all these, how to focus. And before I hit send to my publisher, I asked myself this question because I was nervous about it. I've waited three decades to put this out there and I said, will 100% of the people who read this book, who read this book get results? And my honest answer was no. And that was kind of like a coming to looking in the mirror and be honest with myself. I was like, no, because a lot of people know what to do. They know the methods, but they don't do what they know. And I realized that I had to incorporate the successes I've had over the past three decades with programs in over 195 countries and our own podcast with tens of millions of downloads. I get these feedback that it's not just methodology. There's two M's that have to come before that and there are these three M's and I call it the limitless model. So to make this interactive, we can make actually a master class for everyone who's listening. I want everyone who's listening to think about one area. Just one specific area where you feel like you're held back, where you feel limited. Maybe it is in a relationship. Maybe it's in your personal health and well-being. Maybe it's in your income. Maybe it's in your impact. Maybe you feel limited in your learning. You just use your memory or you just feel like you're slow in some area and you're not making progress because limitless is not about being perfect. Limitless, I wrote it to help people progress and advance beyond what they believe is possible. And so it starts with a limitless model because if you feel like you're in a box in some area and I think most people could identify with an area of their life where it's not their desired state, that box is three-dimensional right by definition. And the three dimensions that keep us stuck in that box for making progress are the same three forces that will liberate you. And how I want people to imagine it is three intersecting circles. So they call it a Venn diagram. It kind of looks like Mickey Mouse, two ears that cross over and a face. So three intersecting circles and these are the three M's. The last M as I mentioned are the methods. But if you could have the methods and still be stuck in that box and what's missing, the first M is your mindset. And your mindset I am defining as your set of assumptions and attitudes about something, your attitudes and assumptions about the world and how it works, your attitudes, assumptions about health and wellness, your attitudes, assumptions about dieting, your attitudes, assumptions about education, about business, attitudes, assumptions about yourself. What would fall in this circle would be things like what you believe is possible. Another thing that would fall in this circle is what you believe you're capable of. So you might think it's possible for somebody else to be super healthy or to reverse this condition, but you might believe you're not capable of it. And that will keep you in that box. Another thing that would fall in there is what you believe you deserve. And so I could teach somebody a method on how to remember names, a common issue for a lot of people, how three steps on how to remember everyone's name. But if their mindset is I'm not smart enough or I have a horrible memory, they're still going to be stuck in that box because all behavior is belief driven. And people come to me all the time. They say, Jim, I'm just getting too old. I'm not smart enough. And I say, stop. If you fight for your limits, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. And we always have to monitor our self-talk because our brains are like supercomputers and our self-talk is the program it will run. So if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering people's names, you won't remember the name and the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer or not to. So that's our mindset. Now the second M, you could have a limitless mindset and believe everything is possible. You're capable of it. You even deserve to be healthier. You deserve to make that money. You deserve to have a great memory. And you can have the methods, but you could still be stuck in that box because you lack the motivation. And that's the second M, it's motivation. Now with motivation, it's kind of a loaded word and words have effects on how we process information. And some people think motivation is just about getting hyped up and pumping yourself up or maybe exerting willpower to be motivated to eat that right diet or to exercise that day or to prioritize your sleep. But for most people, motivation is the equivalent of a warm bath that just cools down. And I discovered after three decades of teaching this, not only is it based on the latest neuroscience towards accelerated learning and cognitive performance, it's just me working with everyone from children with severe learning challenges like I had to seniors that are very concerned about these senior moments and early stage brain aging challenges and everyone in between that I believe that genius leaves clues. And the people that have sustainable motivation, there are three elements in common. And let's do this thought experiment everybody. Think about, let's say we're going to build the ultimate motivated human being. What are the three things that are necessary? The formula for sustained motivation, limitless motivation is this P times E times S3, P times E times S3. And what do these things mean? The first thing that person needs, let's say it is to exercise, right? It's pretty conclusive that, you know, we have brains to be able to control our movement primarily. And as your body moves, your brain grooves. The challenge is we live very sedentary lives. We're behind screens all the time nowadays. And so moving is great. We create, when we move, we create brain derived neurotropic factors. It's BDNF. It's like fertilizer for our brain. Yet people aren't doing the exercise and I'm not talking about doing solar cycle three times a week. I'm talking about just moving each day, going for a hike, going for a walk. And even there are studies that show that people when they're doing something rhythmic like an elliptical or a light walk, and they're listening to your audio book or podcast, then they're actually assimilating and retaining it actually better. So, you know, as you move, what's good for your heart is going to be generally good for your head, more blood flow, more oxygen. And yet not everybody does that. So they're not motivated. So the P stands for purpose. And I would remind everybody, purpose is not just intellectually knowing the reasons why to do stuff. A lot of people can name all the reasons why they should eat well or prioritize sleep or meditate or exercise, but they don't feel the benefits, right? Or they don't feel the consequences of not doing so. So for example, and there might be a little bit of background noise. I'm cocooning in New York City and this is an opportunity for people to build and flex their focus muscles right now as a mental exercise. So it's very real and it's very raw. I remember having an acquaintance that just was not healthy. They did everything opposite of what you would recommend somebody do to be healthy and well. And he ends up having a heart attack, almost dies, has triple bypass surgery, very, very painful for him and the people around him. But even afterwards, he still didn't change his lifestyle, you know, much to the dismay of his family and his friends, you know, giving him suggestions. And then years later, I see him on the street and he is like the picture perfect of health. He just looks years younger. And I just had to know. I was like, I know what he did, right? You say explain to me all the things. I want to know why, you know, just like this young, you know, one woman that read 30 books in 30 days, her she found purpose in her mom, right? Well, he one day comes home to his daughter who's crying and crying uncontrollably. And she ended she had his dream that she lost her dad and she wasn't he wasn't there to walk her down the aisle and see this whole story, right? But that was purpose. And all of a sudden, the lifestyle just fell into place because he found, you know, a purpose that he felt that success really goes from your head to your heart to your hands, three H's. But you can visualize a goal in your head, but not act with your hands, ie you procrastinate. And a lot of times you're not allowing yourself to have the second age, which is the feelings the heart, because we are not as much as we like to think we are. We are not logical, right? We are biological. And you think about dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, dormant, we are these feeling soups. And if you don't feel something, we're not going to do those things. And so even remembering someone's name, a lot of people won't remember names simply because they don't have a purpose for it. Or the names they will remember, they do have a purpose. They have feelings, they have they are attracted to the person, or they could be good for their business, right? So the key to a long term memory is this, information by itself is forgettable, but information combined with emotion becomes unforgettable, right? So we don't remember the periodic table most people back in high school because the state that they learned it in was that of boredom. And if information times emotion is a long term memory, and boredom is on a scale of zero to 10, zero, anything times zero is zero. But we remember things like, I bet that people listening that there's a song that could take you back to when you're in high school, or a fragrance, or a food that could take you back to when you're a child, because that's where you take something that's ordinary and make it extraordinary using using those feelings. And so going back, Maya Angelou said, people will forget what you say, they'll forget what you did, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. That's why I think remembering names is so important. But going back to this equation in terms of motivation, feelings, we are feeling creatures, first thing in order to be motivated, tap into that feeling of what are the benefits that will come from doing this activity, or the consequences that you'll pay for not doing it. And if you don't feel it, you won't sustain that motivation. Now, the second part of that I said was that we're building this ultimate motivated human being. If someone just has a big enough purpose, will they always be motivated? And I said to myself, no, they can be missing the E in the equation, P times E times S3, the E stands for energy, because somebody going back to working out, you know, it's universal, we know that exercise and movement is good for people. And yet you could have the purpose, but maybe you have a newborn child, and you haven't slept in three days, and you're just exhausted, you're not going to be very motivated to follow through and exercise. Because the evidence that somebody is motivated is not what you say, it's not how you feel, it's not how your employees say they're motivated, it's not how your children say they feel, it's if they're doing the thing consistently, motive for action, there's action that's there. Or let's say people want to read, I think that leaders are readers, when people do see me on Instagram and Facebook, photos with, you know, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey and Elon Musk, we bonded over books, right? And I think it's so amazing that if someone like yourself has decades of experience, and you put it into a book, I happen to have one of your books right here. Oh, bless your heart, the longevity paradox, he's holding up. Yes. But if you, you know, you have decades of experience, and you put it into a book, and one of your listeners could read that book in a handful of days, they could download decades into days, that's a biggest advantage people have. So it actually takes about 45 minutes a day for the average reader to finish one book a week, 52 books a year, where the average person only reads two or three or four books a year, imagine reading 52 books a year. And there's 64,000 words in the average book, and the average person reads about 200 words per minute, that means it takes about 320 minutes to get through a book, divided by seven days in a week, about 45 minutes a day. But if somebody can read, you know, 45 minutes a day, maybe it's because they ate a big meal full of just processed, you know, it's just junk food, and that's not junk and food, don't really go together, there's just junk and there's food. But they eat this, this meal on their food coma, and they're not going to study, you know, they're not going to be motivated to read that day, because they lack the energy. And so that's why energy is so important. That's why in the book, we talk about sleep and other things, like energy vampires mitigating stress, which takes up a lot of energy. And then my mind said, okay, if somebody just has purpose, they feel it, and they have limitless energy, will they always follow through and be motivated? And I said, no, one more exception. If they're missing s3, three s's, small, simple steps. Often I find with working with clients, especially high achievers, they have a purpose of building this big vision, but it's so big, it's intimidating, and something that's confusing people don't know what to do. And a confused mind, whether it's your patients or your potential customers, they don't do anything. And so often what you need to do is break it down into small, simple steps. So as an example, maybe for someone who doesn't work out regularly an hour a day of exercise is just too much, it's too intimidating. A small, simple step is putting on your running shoes, maybe reading 45 minutes a day for somebody who doesn't read 45 minutes in a month is too intimidating. Maybe a small, simple step is opening up the book or reading one line. And so how do you find your small, simple step? Simple question. What is the tiniest action you could take that will give you progress towards this goal where you can't fail? What is the tiniest action you could take right now to give you progress towards this goal where you can't fail because it requires very little energy and very little effort? So that's my formula, my limitless formula for motivation, purpose, energy and small, simple steps. And then finally, you have mindset, motivation. The third M, as we mentioned, are the methods. Now here's the aha for a lot of people. The methods are speed reading focus, but it could be methods for being healthy, methods for marketing. You have to upgrade those methods for our current time, our current based on the current research. And here's the thing. When you're looking at this Venn diagram, they're three M's, but they're also three I's. And the three I's are the intersecting points of these M's where mindset and motivation crossover, that shared space is inspiration. Now you have mindset experts, you have mindset books, a great book by Dr. Carol Dweck called mindset. You have motivational speakers, motivational books, where they cross over, you have inspiration and you have inspiring speakers, inspiring books, inspiring movies. What does an inspiring movie do? It changes your mindset of what's possible and gives you some energy and some drive, but you're inspired, but you lack the methods. You don't know what to do. So an inspiring speaker will inspire you, but like, what do I eat now? Or how do I move? Or how do I do my sleep? They want to be doing the methods. Now the second I is where mindset and methods cross over. Where mindset, you believe everything is possible in your mind and methods, you know exactly what to do based on latest research, the processes that shared space is ideation. Ideation because it just stays an idea because what's missing, the motivation to do anything. So you're still stuck in that box. And then finally, where motivation and methods cross over, you have implementation. Somebody is motivated. They have purpose. They feel it. They have limitless energy. They broke things down to small, simple steps. They know the actual full strategy and processes to be well and or to learn faster or to build their business, but they could still be stuck in that box while they're implementing because they're only going to be able to achieve what their mindset allows them to. What they believe is possible, but they believe they're capable of, or even what they believe they deserve. Maybe they don't think they deserve to be healthy or deserve to be in that relationship. And so the fourth I, where all three I's and all three M's converge right in the middle, the fourth I is integration. Integration like integer or integral means you're whole. And that's just who you are. And that's the limitless state. And I create this framework for accelerated learning, but it really is a framework, a lens for human potential, because it takes the angst out of the judgment where you feel like you're not making progress and you beat yourself up. Studies done on self compassion show that when you beat yourself up, you're less likely to actually follow through. But when you're kind to yourself, you're more likely to follow through where you say, okay, I'm only human. I'm doing the best I can. We're living in a very chaotic world right now and you add kindness to it. You're more likely to follow through. But going into this, now you have a lens to look at saying, where is my bottleneck here? Is it in my mindset? Do I not believe I'm worthy of this or it's possible for me or I'm capable of it? Or do I not feel purpose? Or do I need to spend some time on my energy? Or do I need to break this overwhelming? Do I need to break it down into small, simple steps? Or do I need to listen to a podcast or read a book on the best methods for being healthy or the best methods for learning or the best methods for investing? And so that's why I created this framework to be an explanatory schema for why we get stuck and also because then you could pinpoint the area that limits you because the limitless is about redrawing the borders and boundaries of wherely what's possible. Let me, I tell you what, let's do a fun thing for everybody who's listening. Okay, I can't learn a foreign language. Boy have I tried. I am horrible at it. I spend a lot of time normally traveling to foreign countries and do interact with lots of people, would love to speak fluent French like my wife would love to speak fluent Italian. I've gotten the books on tape, I listen to it in the car and then I go to put it into practice and it's just an unmitigated disaster. Now part of my excuse is I've been, I've told myself from day one I can't learn a foreign language and so and my wife speaks fluent French and so every time when you're France I may start speaking and of course fracture weight or glares at you and my wife says shut up I'll take over and okay help me out. All the listeners want to know how am I going to learn French. Right right right and so language is interesting because the largest chapter in the book is the chapter on memory. I wrote it in in Greece. I found out that the again the the goddess of memory her children were the nine muses of art, literature and and science and so we know the power of that and so if someone wants to learn another language there are a number of methods that you could use outside of just rote repetition because that's how most people study the you know medical school or whatever people made their focus they would just do rote repetition and force that information and repeat it over and over again and in in physics just like there's these five variables frequency duration and intensity and think about that for working out your body you could go to the gym many times frequently or do many reps frequency or intent or you could do a duration you spend more time in that and that workout you know Zumba class or more time in that Pilates class or more time on that treadmill or you could do something so intense that you get results also same thing with marketing it could be frequency of sales calls frequency of ads or longer duration ads or something so intense it creates a change and so same thing with our our memories and when it comes to memory memory is often I teach people in the book that memory is as easy as pi p i e and these are the three elements I focus on when you want to enhance your memory and the p stands for place where we realize that the ancient Greeks because I didn't just want to study the latest neuroscience applied to memory I wanted to know what ancient cultures did before there were printing presses and I found out that Simonides an ancient uh a poet in order he gave a talk and afterwards he left the building something tragic happened the building collapsed and he was the only lone survivor and because he was the lone survivor he had the responsibility of helping family members identify their loved ones and he was able to because he remembered where they were all sitting and it's kind of human nature as a hunter-gatherer we didn't need to memorize hundred-digit numbers we need to remember where things work where's the where's the fertile soil where's the clean water where's the enemy tribe where's the food and that was our survival so p is the place where we store information the eye and pie stands for imagine and we remember things better that we could visualize in our mind we are better often people are better with faces than they are with names you go to somebody say I recognize I remember your face but I forgot your name you never go to someone to say the opposite you never go to someone say I remember your name but I forgot your face that would make a true that's very good but there's a proverb that says what I hear I forget what I see I remember what I do I understand I saw I heard the name I forgot the name I saw the face I remember the face and what I do going back to practice I understand because practice makes progress so visualizing helps you to remember so that's the eye you imagine it and the E in pie stands for entwine entwine what does that mean it means you put or associate two things together because ultimately all learning is that all learning is associating something you don't know to something you know so you're associating a name to a face or a word to its definition or form a foreign language to its its translation or a capital to its you know country there's always two bits information that you're associating in this case what you're entwining is the place in the image and that's a simple formula for remembering faces you know names and faces and even languages let me give you an example all right so when we're talking about languages one of the keys is is beyond repetition and frequency is go for intensity as you could see it and you could feel it and hear it the more of your nervous system you use the more intensive becomes the more unforgettable it is as an example actually let's let's let's do this okay this is this would be interesting I want people who are listening to do what I'm explaining right now we'll take I'll give a couple of French examples but let's learn how to count to ten in Japanese all right in two minutes that's the promise two minutes whoa all right count to ten in Japanese and most people say oh just repetition ichi ni san chi go roku shichi haji kuju and just repeat it a hundred times so your mind gets bored and and just gives up well here if we could see if there's a place and there's an image and we're we're associating we're gonna remember better so um maybe you could do this with me and uh and just play along if you're listening or if you're watching this so one and two is itchy knee so it your knee right now scratch your knee itchy knee itchy knee god that's it and two itchy knee three is san san it sounds to me like san so point to the light or san and say san san and four san four is she she so point to a female a female or a photo of female good she so that's one through four itchy knee san she she five and almost said female exactly but your true memory knows the difference right so five is go go like you're going so i'm just moving my arms my legs that's about going for a walk so go so what's five go go go six is roku roku and for me it reminds me if i could visualize rowing a canoe so imagine this just kind of rowing a canoe so again itchy knee san she she and then you go go roku and that's one through six and then if you keep on going seven is actually itchy and it sounds like i'm sitting itchy and then eight is ha ha chi and it's a hot seat so you're itchy and then you stand up ha chi and finally nine is coup coup what what coups like a baby so you just move your arms around that you're holding a baby coup and then ten is jew like a jewel like you're putting on a ring a jewel all right jewel and that that's a simple way in two minutes to explain it but what we're doing again is replacing it we're imagining it and we're entwining it an example of taking something like like a foreign language if you wanted to say like real basic for people listening that don't speak french if you wanted to say something like thank you in french right we know that it is merci and now here's the thing for people most times we do a flash card right they'll have the word and it's translation on the other side but if you use your imagination sound it out like you're playing Pictionary mare see like a mare seeing what's a mare a female horse and seeing maybe has glasses on or maybe the mare is in the sea and you're helping the mare out of the sea the water and then he says or she says thank you or you're putting the glasses back on the mare mare see and she says thank you and people will say that's so childish but who are the fastest learners they're children and they're so playful they use their creativity they use their imagination when I say limitless the limitless resource we have on planet earth is human potential it's not the sky's the limit our mind is the limit there's no limit to our creativity there's no limit to our imagination there's no limit to our ability to solve problems and the reason why I bring these exercises up is in a world where jobs are going to machines they're being automated they are going to artificial intelligence what's not going to be as easily outsourced to a device are what makes us human our creativity our imagination things like strategy so what we're doing is we're actually building and flexing we're working out those muscles those creativity muscles those imagination muscles these strategy muscles take something like how do you say something like how do you say please instead of thank you how do you say please you know you know in French oh in French hang actually I was I was thinking of a joke so now I'm now I'm completely off though somebody says like a sivu play for me it's like what does it sound like if we're playing Pictionary silver plate so imagine you're you're building pleas into a story you're entwining it with a silver plate and and your true memory knows the difference you just need a prompt to remind you right and then once you see what people really need especially with names they need something to overcome what I call the six second syndrome somebody tells you their name and you have six seconds to do something with it otherwise it's gone you know and so when you pick a place on their face like they're there they have great head of hair great pair of glasses and you find out you know that's the place P and Pi and the I is imagine maybe their name is David and for me I imagine a slingshot why because David and Goliath and the E is entwine it's one of my entwining their glasses with the slingshot and I'm just imagining myself hitting them in the glasses with a slingshot it's so ludicrous would never ever happen in reality but I'll never forget it because when I say goodbye to him 20 minutes later what's his place oh his glasses what was I doing hitting with a slingshot what's his name David and here's the thing even when it doesn't work it still works because it gets you to focus on the person and it gets you to focus on the name right and then even when so even when it doesn't work it still works and when I know the person's name is David long term then the picture disappears just like the silver plate disappears or the mare with the glasses how do you ask how are you in French so so if you want to say something like uh yeah let's say come on tell evu comment yeah so for me come on tell evu sounds like come on to this alley see this view so I might venture myself in France I see the Eiffel Tower and then I'm going them having a conversation with some means I was asking them how they are and then all of a sudden they say come on to this alley see this view because if you did the work and you studied it you know it's come on tell evu but you need something to prompt you just like that David and Goliath image and then once you know what it is your true memory because what it does it makes it so intense you don't have to do the frequency and the duration now change it and you want to learn it in Chinese take out the Eiffel Tower put in the Great Wall of China and you have you know how are you and it's Nihoma Nihoma and I just think of like going up and saying how are you and somebody takes a garden someone's ma takes a garden hoe and then just hits me on the knee and it sounds so silly and ludicrous but remember information combined with emotion humor violence becomes more memorable and other ways we talk about in the book on how to do this on how to study we talk about the best music to have in the background certain Baroque classical music Vivaldi Handal harmonizes with the resting heartbeat which helps you go into this alpha state brainwave state to help you learn content better facts figures foreign languages we talked about space review and retention all different kinds of strategies to stack on to it to make learning not only fast but enjoyable oh but come on Jim I can just pull up my app on my iPhone and translate everything I don't need your trash come on and here's the thing because I get this comment a lot I train at Google and Facebook and they're like Jim I don't have to remember this I have a search in and we organize the world's information here here's my answer for this I'll give you a couple answers number one our life in the book I have a quote from a French philosopher that says life is the sea between B and D B is birth D is death C is choice and we always make these these choices and part of the things is our life is a reflection of all the choices we've made up to this point of our of our existence right what are we gonna eat where are we gonna live who we gonna spend time with what are we gonna do for living all these things right but we can only make good decisions based on the information we know and that presupposes we remember it and so that's why memory is so important but the other reason why it's not just about mental intelligence it's about mental fitness there's these you know things that are happening like digital dementia where we're outsourcing our memories to our smart devices and it keeps our to-dos it keeps our calendars it keeps our phone how many phone numbers did you know growing up how many like a lot all yeah a lot how many phone numbers do you know or whoever's listening how many phone numbers do you know right now one two three maybe and there could be somebody who texts and call every day but you if they're your battery is dead you don't have your phone with you you honestly don't know who the what their number is and not that I want to memorize 200 numbers right I mean I certainly could teach somebody how to do that but we've lost the ability should be concerning we've lost ability to remember one or a pin number or a passcode or a conversation we just had or something we were gonna say or why we went to the store we go to store to buy one thing we come back with two bags full of things except for that one thing that we want you know they absolutely someone's name and that's why I believe memory is a muscle and there's no such thing as a good or bad memory there's a trained memory and an untrained memory and this also goes to not only digital dementia but also what I talked about in the book digital deduction where if you don't have to think anymore and then there's a technology that tells you where and when to turn right or what's recommended for you because there's an algorithm we're finding children they don't when they're tested they don't have the same analytical ability of previous generations because the technology is doing all the thinking for them so they don't have to develop these kind of thinking us fitness like the critical thinking divergent thinking rationalization and so on so technology is wonderful it allows us to have this conversation right now and everyone to listen for it but technology is a tool free for you to use but your brain is like a muscle it's not obviously not a muscle but it acts like a muscle but if I use a technology like lift or uber to go five blocks when I could have walked or I use an elevator when I could have walked up three blocks of you know flights of stairs there is a physical toll to my body and if I put my arm in a sling for 12 months it wouldn't stay the same it wouldn't even grow it would grow worse it would atrophy and that's what digital dimension digital deduction is the high reliance on technology where we don't have to maintain us a level of mental fitness and so I would encourage people to be able to exercise their brain like the exercise the rest of their body wow that's a that's a pretty good way to end all this so all right I ask everybody who comes on the program give give our listeners one thing they can do today to get a better brain just just one thing how do we start yeah just one absolutely I would say this I would say first oh god I'm gonna take like 10 things I only want one thing one thing I would I would say this I would say sit down and design your morning routine your morning routine my everybody has their morning routine of the things that they do to win that day because if you want to win the day you have to win that first hour of the day first you create your habits and your habits create you my morning routine if people google it or we did a whole podcast episode on it millions of downloads and views on this jim quicks morning routine focuses on the brain the 10 things I do every morning to jump start my brain and I would just say find something in the morning for you instead of picking up the phone because that's rewiring your brain to be distracted and it's rewiring your brain to be reactive to things that will hurt your peace of mind your positivity your productivity your performance I would say replace picking up your phone with one thing that's good for your brain whether it's eating a good brain food taking deep diaphragmic breaths with some fun thing I teach people to do is brush their teeth with the opposite hand because it engages the opposite side of your brain because as your body moves your brain grooves but what it really does is it forces you to focus first thing in the morning because you can't be doing that and being distracted so it trains your fit your your focus and your presence muscles and that's how you're going to achieve the most because the most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing so my challenge with everybody look at your morning routine and replace picking up your phone with something else that's more brain friendly all right everybody now can everybody remember that please you got to brush your teeth with the other hand and actually I'm going to add something while you're brushing your teeth you have to do deep knee bends you got to do squats you're just sitting there anyhow just standing there like do some yeah do some deep deep ends and brush your teeth with the opposite hand okay that's the lesson today Jim thanks so much for being here uh where do where do people find you that probably already know but just tell us how to figure you out we we have a podcast you can search Jim quick he just said spelled right k w i k in your podcast app every episode is only 15 minutes on how to remember names learn languages change your habits all that great stuff you can find that quickbrain.com and the book limitlessbook.com is where you'll get all the links around the world because I know your audience is global so we have put all the links conveniently there for you to find the book and we are gifting on that page uh free book club where we spend one week per section of the book to help you read and remember and apply it and two bonus chapters there limitless for kids and limitless for your team how to apply the limitless model to those areas that's limitlessbook.com and I would actually challenge everybody right now is to take a screenshot of this episode the fastest my last tip for everybody the fastest way to learn something is to learn with the intention of teaching somebody else so I would say one of the ways you could do that take a screenshot of this episode right now tag Dr. Gundry tag myself at Jim quick posted on Facebook Instagram Twitter and share the one aha from this conversation what is one small simple step that you could take to better your brain the same question that I was asked here what's one simple one simple tip that people could do what's one simplest thing that you're going to do to better your brain post that in the description or take a picture of your notes and post a tag us both in it and I'll actually repost my favorites because that way I could see it if you're following and tagging me and I'll actually send a copy of limitless to a couple of my favorite answers just as a fun uh great idea great idea and uh maybe we'll uh we'll send off a longevity paradox through the first few folks that we like as well because we've done that that'd be that'd be fun all right well it's a pleasure to meet you big fan and uh please enjoy the longevity paradox and I've certainly thoroughly enjoyed limitless and I'm gonna dog gun and I'm gonna learn French and I'll call you in French all right all right thanks for being here today here's the book all right so it's time for the audience question Elton hey asks on drgundry.com have been on the plant paradox diet for approximately one year but still have knee and hip and lower back stiffness and pains anything in particular that can be done to address these issues I'm 79 years old and in reasonably good health well I read this actually earlier and I had a chuckle and of course my first chuckle was well if I could turn back the hands of time and make you 30 that would be a start but in all seriousness uh recently my uh my wife and I I'll turn 70 in a month my wife just turned 70 a couple months ago and injured her knee uh skiing this this year and uh that she's a habit tennis player and now her knee hurts when she plays tennis and we've tried actually all of my wonderful tricks uh the supplements that we use and I could name them but I'm going to give you another trick that is actually really working right now uh I have mentioned on a previous podcast that I've been fascinated with the red and near infrared delight therapy for a variety of things and you're going to learn a lot about it in the next book the energy paradox and I have used this device on a shoulder that I injured I've used this device on my knee and my wife um understandably chuckles and says yeah yeah okay so you know I'm so happy that's working for you but she's been kind of frustrated so for the last uh week and a half I said look you got nothing to lose why don't you you know get out my little box of red light therapy and I have no relationship with this company but it's a juu j o o v v and put it on your knee for 10 minutes a day and she's been doing that now for a week and a half almost two weeks and I gotta tell you her knee pain is pretty much gone it flares a little bit when she plays tennis but she puts the light on it she doesn't need eyes she doesn't need anything else and she said what the heck is this doing and you're gonna have to get the energy paradox to find out but that's one thing get yourself a light box or alternatively get yourself a sauna and I think there's some really important things happening at the mitochondrial level that can really help you with this so great question so give it a thought okay review of the week uh luke adrian on youtube wrote dr gunnery's ability to carefully listen to his guests without interrupting them ever is truly an ability most people have lost these days well thanks for saying that um I really like uh our podcast to be a forum where people can have different opinions present their ideas I really like to hear them many of you have requested that I slice some of my guests into small thin ribbons and spit them out and throw them on the floor but that's not what this is here for this is to get different opinions and listen to them and I think I've talked about this before surgeons in general don't listen we actually really enjoy having people asleep and cutting them open but just joking but one of the things that I learned when I transitioned into what I do 20 odd years ago now is to listen to people and so that's what you're gonna find here you're you're gonna find us listening to people and uh thanks for noticing that uh that I'm doing it on purpose so thanks a lot okay that's it for this week's dr gunnery podcast we'll see you next week before you go I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on itunes google play stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts because I'm dr gunnery and I'm always looking out for you