 We upgrade our technology all the time. You get the new iPhone, you get the new apps, you upgrade all these things. But when's the last time we took time to upgrade the most important thing? Why you felt compelled to update this book? Well, I would say the world has changed, obviously, the past few years. And so this is a book to really prepare you to not only survive but thrive in a post-pandemic AI world. So the external world has changed. And then my personal world has changed also as well. I'm in my 50s now, and we had our first child. And those kind of life conditions make you want to reflect. And it's really deepened my commitment and my conviction to help the next generation, especially, to have a better brain so they could handle the onslaught of information overload, digital distraction, digital dementia, digital depression, and so much more. Since you brought up having a first child, how did your brain deal with having sleepless nights maybe for the first time in a while? Maybe you can help our listeners through that. Yeah, absolutely. There's a big chapter in the new book on sleep. Sleep is one of the most important things we could do for our brain. If people think about when they get a bad night's sleep, whether they have a newborn or not, your brain doesn't really work the same way. How's your ability to think? How's your ability to solve problems? How's your mental energy to endure tough tasks? How's your memory, your focus, concentration? All of that slips. And so, yes, we talk about, it's been an interesting, especially the past few months, with the baby teething and up all night, and it's been a process. It really forces me to double down on what we teach because when we're talking about performance and productivity, especially the mental side of it, it's critical. We get adequate recovery, and so our brain's not meant to go full force 24-7. We need those periodic brain breaks throughout the day and certainly getting good seven to nine hours of sleep, especially the quality of the deep sleep and the REM sleep is so very vital. So we could definitely talk about some of my quick tips to optimize your sleep as well. Maybe this is actually a good place to start. Since you brought it up, all of us talk about it, all of us write about it, and yet whenever people are writing in on Instagram or YouTube, they go, oh yeah, it's fine for you to say you need seven, eight, nine hours of sleep, but come on, be realistic, that's impossible. I'll sleep when I die, I'm a entrepreneur, and if I get four hours of sleep, it's a great day, and I'm at my sharpest when I am only getting five hours of sleep. What say you? So I would say that we probably underestimate, those individuals probably underestimate, and when it comes to our productivity and our performance, even our profitability and certainly our peace of mind, the importance of sleep, I would say that life conditions are tough, right, they're global events, there's this lot of fear that's out there that keeps people ruminating throughout the night, and it keeps them from falling asleep, staying asleep also as well. Obviously people are more addicted to their devices now more than ever, and that could, all the context switching on our phones at night, and the light that comes from our screens, all that adds to the ongoing challenges and the onslaught for us to get restorative rest to be able to bounce back, and not only bounce back, how do you bounce forward? And so there are simple things people could do, I always like to, you know, my last name really is quick, I didn't change it to do what I do, so we offer a lot of quick tips in our book, especially the new one on how to improve your focus, your memory, your ability to read faster, to be able to lead better also as well, and create momentum in your life, but sleep is definitely one of those course, you know, it's right up there, along with exercise and diet and social connections. Some of my favorite things to do for sleep, and I'm curious for you also as well, we've had you on our podcast, and a little bit of the conversation. For me, I notice what moves the lever is sunlight first thing in the morning is really important. It doesn't have to take a lot of time, going outside if it's possible. I know that with our windows, it could keep some of the spectrum of light out, but the reason why sunlight first thing in the morning is so important is it helps you to reset your circadian rhythms, which is important, first thing in the morning to get a good night's rest. For me, I'm very sensitive to caffeine, so I can't have caffeine in my system pass maybe 12, 2 p.m. max. You could stay in your system eight to 10 plus hours, and so I want to be conscious of that. Probably the biggest needle movers, and in addition to light, first thing in the morning, everybody has an alarm to wake up. Simple thing they could do is set an alarm to go to sleep. Your nervous system loves that kind of regulation, and staying on a structured schedule, even on the weekends, and nobody gets this perfect. The goal is not perfection, but some people have so much anxiety about what they eat, or lighting everything, and it kind of negates some of the benefit of eating those good foods, or doing some of the things that are good for you, because that chronic stress is a challenge also. Chronic stress has been shown to shrink the human brain. If we're in fight or flight all the time, it also holds us hostage from, kind of keeps us in our survival brain, and doesn't allow us access easily to our executive functioning, to our critical thinking, to our ability to solve problems. So setting an alarm is very something simple you could do to be able to know it's time to phase in that parasympathetic rest and digest, turning off your devices an hour before sleep, because again, our brains really didn't about to have that kind of stimulus, where we have access to the world's information, this close to our brain. I would also say that two things that could make a big difference, if you think about hunter-gatherers, they would know it would be time to go to sleep because the environment would tell them so. There would be a drop in two environmental factors, in temperature and in light. So again, this is common sense, but it's not common practice. So cooler the better, now where it's so cold, you're shivering, because that would be very distracting and make it more difficult to sleep, and then it's dropping light. And so getting off our devices, because with modern conveniences, Dr. Gundry, it doesn't have to get colder. It doesn't have to get darker, right? We have all these modern technologies that allow for it. So we have to make a conscious choice to do these things and not be mindless about it. Something simple like taking a warm bath or a sauna or a warm shower, when you get out of it that night, your core body temperature is gonna drop, which is a signal to produce melatonin, your natural relaxation tool, and especially if you take a warm bath with magnesium, because you could absorb that magnesium transdermally, which helps you to be able to relax at night also as well. Besides a colder room, a darker room also as well. So some people use the glasses to block out some of the lighting, or they use red bulbs. For us, the big thing is not being on the phone, because again, not only for the light, because we trick our minds into thinking it's still daylight, but also because the content on our phones to be very aggravating and stimulating, especially with the news that's going on today. Yeah, those are all great points. I recommended people in my book, one of the easiest things to do that you just brought up is to take warm, hot bath right before bedtime, and you're right, put some epsom salts in the bathwater. Magnesium is a remarkable sleep aid. And dropping core temperature, we don't go to sleep until our body temperature drops. And that's just a great trick, and people go, oh, I don't have time for hot bath, or that's lazy, and I should be on my phone another half hour, but you're right. Setting a time to go to bed, I keep telling people to get a dog, because dogs will keep you on a timetable. Our dogs literally signal, okay, it's time to go to bed. They all, they sit there and stare at you about 8.30 at night going, excuse me, it's time. And of course, then in our household, they're staring at us at five o'clock in the morning, jumping on our chest to get us up. So dogs are great for, because that's how it's supposed to work, and you just follow your dog's lead. Yeah, there's a lot of wisdom. We have two dogs ourselves, and so a lot of organic natural wisdom in animals for sure. Right, and the dog makes you go out and face sunlight early in the morning, whether you want to or not. So it's just, it's a win-win for sleep. Absolutely. I have a lot of patience, since you brought up the word ruminate, that for probably obvious reasons, we do a lot more ruminating than probably our parents did or our grandparents did. Is there a solution to this? Come on, you're the brain expert. How do you stop this constant talk in your brain? There are a number of tools that are quick and easy and even could be enjoyable, and we could start with small, simple steps. Sometimes making big steps maybe is challenging for a lot of people, but I think little by little, a little can become a whole lot. For my day, it's interesting. I plan my day and it's not always perfect, but I'll give you the principle and people could see what I do, and I'm not saying do exactly what I do, but understand the thinking behind it, and because behind every principle is a promise, and for this is gonna be greater productivity, performance, and the peace of mind. So when I wake up and I'll go to the rumination part, just to set context for my day, I really focus on three or four Cs, and I like to illiterate a lot because it makes it very memorable and sticky for the listeners who happen to be right now driving or working out, and they can't take notes, even though we could turn this into a little bit of a masterclass on brain optimization. The first C in the morning, I really focus on creativity, meaning I wanna pull information out of my brain because that works really best for me. I don't wanna put input in, so that's why I don't touch my phone first thing in the morning you and I talked about in the previous episode that I have a Facebook video that has 37 million views just saying don't touch your phone the first 30 minutes of the day because it rewires your brain for distraction, it rewires your brain for reaction, and it's really hard to have a really good day if you can't really manage that first hour of the day. But it doesn't have to take a lot of time because the challenge with the brain is when we task switch, when we think we're multitasking, but we're task switching and we go from one thing to another, we light up a different network in our brain, the different cognitive web, and the switch, it takes time and it uses up a lot of brain glucose, uses up a lot of energy, so people feel that crash throughout the day, part of it is because of just how we're managing our behaviors throughout the day. I'll give you an example, in the morning I wanna be more creative, I'm not looking for input, I'm looking for output, and for me it comes in the form of that's when I design a podcast, that's when I write, I put together curriculum for programs, I work on the strategy of our business, I'm creating. The second phase, usually around lunchtime in the afternoon, I'm consuming, right? So we're creating, I'm pulling out of my brain, consuming, I'm putting in the input, and what am I consuming? I'm listening to podcasts such as yourselves, I'm reading, I'm doing my research, checking in with the team, consuming, and doing a little communicating. In communicating I try to also task together and I bucket it together so my brain doesn't have to switch different tasks, that's usually, I do most of my communication of when I go on walks, even if it's on a Zoom, I'll carry my phone and I'll go for a walk and I'll get my steps in, and I try to batch all my communication around the same time, and so that would be the third C, so I wake up, I create later in the afternoon, I consume, at some point in between or part of those days I'm also communicating, and then finally the fourth, which goes back to rumination, I wanna clear my brain, right? And so think about it, in the morning I am creating, pulling out, later on I'm consuming, some point I'm communicating, batched, where my brain is connected with other people's brains, and at night time I wanna clear my brain, and how do I do that to reduce rumination, those constant thoughts or the worries? Things like Yoga Nidra is very helpful, certain breathing, maybe with a mantra, something simple, and none of these things take any money, and it doesn't take a lot of time either as well. Part of how I clear my brain also is just doing some foam rolling before bed, because it gets me into my body, and again, helps support beginning that parasympathetic rest and digest. If I do any consuming at night, I like to read, but I read fiction, because I don't wanna read nonfiction, nonfiction is more for my afternoon, because if I go into nonfiction at night time, if I'm reading books on neuroscience, or marketing, or something, I get into my executive brain, and I don't really wanna go there. Fiction reading allows me to relax, to go into my imagination, my creativity. Fiction reading, by the way, is obviously we teach reading and speed reading, is a wonderful way to build your EQ, your emotional intelligence, it's a wonderful way to enhance your empathy, and perceptual positions through narratives. So, I wanna really emphasize the importance of fiction reading, because it kinda fills it up, if I do do that, I'm not thinking about bills, I'm not thinking about my responsibilities. Another way of clearing is having a conversation with family members. I'll talk to my wife and talk to her about what happened that day, and all of a sudden, I'm clearing, right? I'm allowing myself to have a blank slate. I'll even prepare the next day, my schedule, and I find that when I write things down externally for my planning for the next day, I don't have to ruminate about it, I don't have to think about it. In fact, for rumination, you can even schedule it. You're saying, hey, even during the day, if you find yourself ruminating, you could say, okay, I'm gonna worry about this, but I'm gonna worry about it at 4.15 to 4.30. And then, my mind is like, okay, now I could just enjoy and focus on the task at hand. And then the last thing I'll do at night is I will maybe journal. And that's where I get my other, any excess thoughts out. I think journaling is a wonderful way to clear your mind, to put your thoughts on paper, to have introspection, also kind of process the day, maybe do a little bit of gratitude in a gratitude journal where it allows me to feel good, because gratitude will put you in that parasympathetic rest and digest. Think about three things that really went well that day, that, and you don't have to wait for a greater life to feel grateful. I think that once we start focusing on what we're grateful for, we could have a greater life. So create, communicate, consume, and then clear. All right, you said something that my wife and I were talking about this morning. She says, oh, you know, who's your podcast with today? And I said, oh, we're having Jim Quick back on. She said, Jim Quick, I know that name. I said, yeah, you know, the speed reading guy. And she said, oh, yeah, of course. And I said, I'm gonna learn how to speed read today. And she said, now, why would anybody wanna speed read? Because I love reading my novels, and she had just kind of set down her novel that she was reading this morning. And I wanna enjoy, I wanna immerse myself in those characters, and I don't wanna speed my way through it. So I thought that was an interesting take. Tell me about, can I speed read nonfiction and then enjoy fiction, or what do you think? Accelerating your learning, be able to read faster. I'm not talking about frantic fast. And that's the difference. People think that, well, traditional speed reading is more skimming, scanning words, getting the gist of what you read. We train a lot of financial advisors, attorneys, medical doctors, and you don't want your medical doctor to get the gist of what she's reading, right? It's very important. So you don't read any faster than you can understand. The challenge is a lot of people actually read slower. And because they read slower than what's possible, their focus goes elsewhere. Meaning your brain is this incredible supercomputer. And when you feed your brain one word at a time, metaphorically, we're starving our mind. And if you don't give your brain the stimulus it needs, it'll seek entertainment elsewhere in the form of distraction. If anyone's ever found themselves, like when I started to talk that slow, and I'm from New York, so it's hard to talk that slow, people's minds would naturally go somewhere else. Your mind would wander, you get easily distracted. You start thinking about other things. Some people would even fall asleep if someone was talking that slow to them. But aren't those the same symptoms of a lot of people with their reading? They get easily distracted, their mind wanders, sometimes they fall asleep. And it's similar to, let's use the analogy of driving. If you're driving a car just around your neighborhood, you're going pretty slow, you're not really focused on the act of driving. Some people will actually arrive where they arrive and not even remember the trip there because they're drinking their coffee, they're texting, even though they know they shouldn't. They're thinking about the dry cleaning. You could do five things when you're going slow. But if you're going more quickly, you're not focused on anything other than what's in front of you, like a race car driver, there's focus on what's in front of them and the act of driving. And that's a myth when we talk about certain lies to learning that you have to read slowly to understand it. In fact, we have the largest online academy for accelerated learning. We have students in every country in the world, 195 nations. So we have a lot of data. We find that those who actually read faster, actually, because we test people every single week in our courses, they actually understand more because they're more focused. So the speed gives you the focus, the focus gives you the comprehension, which gives you the retention. And so one simple thing that everyone could do, I mean, this is a tip, it's not a training, but something simple that would help their speed, focus, and understanding would be using a visual pacer when you read. Meaning, if you just underline the words using your finger on a screen or on reading a book, I prefer reading physical books. I don't know what your audience prefers. Maybe they could put that on social media and let us know and tag us in it when they post. But you're not touching the screen. You're not touching the book. I'm not looking for another excuse to be on a screen. So that's why I like to read physical books. Maybe I'm just old school in that way. But it allows you to improve your reading speed upwards to 25 to 50% immediately with very, very little practice, if any. What I am saying is don't believe everything I'm saying, test it because ultimately the person who's listening right now, they are the expert of themselves. So simple test everyone could do because I like to make it very active because I feel like podcasts are great, but all the podcast books, courses, none of it works unless we put into action, unless we work, right? And so test it, pick up a book, pick up where you left off, put a little mark in the margin with a pen or pencil, read for 60 seconds, time it on your phone. And then when you're done, put a mark in the margin, read how you normally would read, and then pick up where you left off, set your timer for 60 seconds and then try using a visual pacer. And it could be your finger, a pen, a highlighter, mouse on a computer, just something that give you focus and then count the number of lines you read in 60 seconds. That number for most people upwards of 90% without any other practice would be a 25 to 50% lift. Some people will double their reading speed doing that because the reason why is your eyes are attracted to motion. If something ran across your room, you wouldn't no longer look at the camera lens, you would look at what moves because as a hunter-gatherer, that's survival. If you're a hunter-gatherer and you're in a bush and you're hunting lunch like a rabbit or a carrot, depending on your diet, if the bush next to you moves, you have to look at what moves because number one, that could be lunch or number two, you could be lunch, right? So when your finger's underlining the words, your eyes are attracted to the movement and you don't do something called regression. Regression is a bad habit that most of us picked up back in elementary school where we unconsciously reread words. I mean, some people have had the experience of rereading whole lines by accident just because their eyes aren't trained, right? And so just underlining the words will give you more focus and that focus will give you better understanding and you'll have greater speed. And just saving 50% on your reading speed is like what, 20 minutes per hour? And most people read more than three hours a day and that alone will save you an hour a day. One hour a day over the course of a year is what, 365 hours, right? That's how many 40 hour work weeks? Nine? Two months of productivity you get back doing something ubiquitous like reading. And so I would say when you're reading, you never read any faster. You're not gonna push your finger any faster than you can understand. So you're not losing comprehension. If anything, you're gaining it because it's helping you to focus. Our listener is probably going, well, yeah, okay, you're reading 25% faster, but are you really comprehending that much faster or are you just reading faster, but it's not sinking in? Yeah, the comprehension is there because the focus is there. That that's why, because your eyes are helping pull you through and because if you go too slow without your finger, which most people do, then their mind distracts themself because they're not getting the stimulus that your super computer could really handle. And so we know that people could very easily improve their reading speed double on average for our 21 day course that some of your listeners may be part of. We triple reading speed with better comprehension. Absolutely. It's not just speed reading, it's smart reading because we also give people tactics for remembering what they read because starting as a memory coach, I feel like it doesn't make sense to read something if you don't understand and retain what you read. Good point indeed. Well, since you mentioned that, how do we remember what we read? Any tricks to that? Of course. So for four and a half years, I read one book a day for four and a half years, just because I think readers or leaders, people that follow me on social media and they see if they happen to see pictures with me with Oprah or Elon or whoever, I could tell you people always ask how did you connect or how did you bond? We bonded over books, right? You read to succeed, leaders or readers. If somebody has decades of experience like you do and you put them into books, which you did and somebody can sit down in a few days and read that book, they could download decades and the days. That's the biggest advantage in today's society because the faster you can learn, the faster you could earn because knowledge today is not only power, knowledge is profit, right? When you have more information and more expertise, you can make better decisions and our life is a sum total of all the decisions we've made but some people, while there's a gap between those who have and those who have not, clearly, there's also a gap between those who know something and those who don't know those things. And so reading is also an incredible, not just the best way to upgrade your software, your mental software, but it's also an incredible mental exercise. When people are talking about brain games and apps, I could tell you that reading is to your mind what exercises to your body. It's one of the best forms of mental exercise to get novelty, to create new learnings, insights and wisdom from experts like yourself. And so, yeah, I would say one of the best ways to improve your memory of what you read is not only using your finger because that will help you with your focus and understanding. The second thing I would say is, ask better questions and ask more questions. You know, we have part of our brain called the Reticular Activating System, R-A-S. And here's the backstory. Our brains are primarily a deletion device. We're trying to keep information out. If we let everything in, we would, there would be so much anxiety and so much overload, right? There's billions of stimulus we could focus on. So what do we decide to let in? Part of it, that gateway is the R-A-S. Something that's programmed in us from a child is like our name. That's why a name is a sweetest sound to a person's ears because when you hear your name, you have to pay attention because we are programmed like that, right? Other things that activate our R-A-S are things that are important to us and especially the questions that we ask because when we ask a new question, we get new answers and think about questions as a spotlight. When we ask a question, we put a spotlight towards answers. So for example, a long time ago, my younger sister would send me postcards and emails of a very specific breed of dog. It was a pug dog, right? And she kept on sending me these images and my question became, why does she keep sending me these images? And then I realized that she had a birthday coming up and she's a good marketer, right? She was seeding that gift. And the funny thing happened, I started seeing that pug dogs everywhere in my neighborhood. No exaggeration. I would be at the supermarket checking out and the person in front of me will be holding a pug dog. I'd be jogging in my neighborhood and a guy would be walking six pug dogs. And my question for the listeners is, did those pug dogs just teleport into my neighborhood? No, of course not. They were always there, but I was deleting it because it was not important to me. Once I started asking questions, I started to see it. And so same thing in life, when we ask questions, I have a theory called the Dominic Question Theory where we have 60,000 thoughts a day and a lot of those thoughts come in the form of questions. And there's certain questions we ask more than any other question and that question determines what we shine a spotlight on. And so if you have more questions when you read about the material, all of a sudden, most people that read a page in a book get to the end and then forget what they just read. Have you ever done that? You read a page in a book, get to the end and just forgot what you just read? Yeah, absolutely. You go back and you reread it. If you still don't know what Pajita's read, but if you have questions about the content when you're reading, you're saying, oh, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog, there's another pug dog. You're getting those kind of answers. Even when we teach a lot of students programs and we have a student success program or high school students or college students, one of them is like when you're taking a standardized test, like reading comprehension, remember those? And then at the end, you had to read all these paragraphs and at the end they had the questions. But a simple test taking technique is read the questions first and then you've charged your RAS, your reticular activating system. So then when you're reading, you're like, there's an answer, there's an answer. You're attracting it like a magnet as opposed to reading pages and then getting to the end and seeing the question saying, oh, I didn't, what was important, right? So I would say for greater speed, use your finger while you read, for greater comprehension, ask more questions because questions are the answer. Two thoughts, number one, I have one of my favorite jokes. I come home from my first day at kindergarten and I come running in and I said, mommy, mommy, I'm so glad that you named me Steve. And she said, why? And I said, because that's what all the little kids at school call me. Oh, that was bad. That was bad. Second, so they obviously shown a spotlight on my name. So what about mindless reading? Is that bad? Should we allow our brain to go blank or fall into a fictional novel just for mindlessness? I think that our brains aren't meant to be active in the same kind of critical thinking, logical executive functioning all the time. I think it's important to stimulate different parts of our brains, just like when we use different parts of our body, right? To challenge yourself in new ways. But also, again, having using that time to recover, to relax, some people binge watch a show or some people will do something else. And it's again, who am I to say where to put people's focus? It's really what the outcome is. But I feel like it's very important every once in a while to have a pit stop, to detach from your work or the things that we spend most time on to be able to go in that kind of default space where we could just enjoy something and let our minds wander. For me, reading doesn't do that so much because it's an active process for me as opposed to television, which is more passive. For me, I think reading nonfiction, you learn through information and reading fiction, we learn through imagination. And I think that's equally important, right? Einstein said imagination is more powerful than knowledge. So to be able to use our imagination, to be able to see what's going on and feel what fiction reading, story reading, it's absolutely valuable. But just like anything, if you're doing too much of it, you need to have some kind of harmony, depending on what your outcome is. But of course, I enjoy reading fiction reading. I enjoy a good show here and there or going to a comedy club, but it's because it's important to stimulate different parts of ourselves and also just to relax. Sometimes we have to disconnect, to reconnect. So I'm sure everybody listening wants to know, come on, have you ever binge watched a series on Netflix or something like that? And if so, what's your most recent one? I enjoy a number of things. I mean, our family watches a bunch of documentaries, certain shows, even like friends, just like these are old shows, but for some reason it just helps me just feel good and it allows me to relax. I don't have to pay a lot of attention to it. Recent shows, I enjoyed billions just wrapped up. I do a lot in that industry. So it's interesting to see another perspective, even though it's coming from Hollywood, they just wrapped up their series finale. Thoughtful shows, I enjoy watching shows. When I'm active, I use movies and television shows to learn. So if I binge watch something, it's something like elementary, which is modern day Sherlock Holmes and Watson's story that takes place in New York City. And I learned though also, so not only is it passive, I go in and I see his process and there he uses mind palaces, which we teach. In that process, he goes into alpha, theta states and I'm learning and then I'm the basis of his process and I'm all about taking genius because I believe genius leaves clues and unpacking it and then teaching it and helping people to adopt that genius. He has a process for observation and deduction. It sounds kind of heady, but it makes it fun for me. So I could enjoy the show itself and I can keep myself also when I choose to to be intellectually stimulated. So it's not just a passive experience, I make it more active. I hate to admit it, but my wife and I finally finished watching Succession last week and I would have thought you'd be a Succession sort of guy. I did finish Succession also as well. It's in the same spirits as Billions also as well. It was a good show. I was okay with the ending almost. I want to move on to a new part of your expanded edition, the brain animal code. Oh, wow. And I was forced to take your test. So give me the whole concept of brain animal code. So the new book, people ask why we did this new book and I say as before that the world has changed post-pandemic AI and I realized, you know, like there's personalized medicine based on our genetics and there's personalized nutrition based on things like our microbiome. Well, we offer personalized learning based on people's cognitive type. And so the inspiration for this assessment and we're making it free for your listeners, they could go to mybrainanimal.com, mybrainanimal.com is, I realized people love taking quizzes, right? They want to know what Game of Thrones character they are or what Harry Potter school that they would best fit in. It's a four minute, it only takes four minutes, it's multiple choice, but it helps you to know more about yourself. There's a scene in Matrix where Neo goes to see the Oracle for the first time, if we're talking about binge watching certain movies, that was one of my favorites, Matrix. Me too. Yes. Absolutely. And when Neo walks into the kitchen of the Oracle, there's a sign above the door that I noticed that says, know thyself. And I think a big part of just being happy and fulfilled is having the curiosity to know yourself. And then the other half of it is having the courage to be yourself, cause a lot of people know themselves. That's why they go to therapy or they journal or they meditate or they do certain things. But also it takes courage to be that person in a world full of other people's expectations and opinions and those kinds of things and judgments and fear making mistakes. But the knowing thyself is so important. And I think knowing your brain animal, I don't think I know could support people in really tapping into their real performance and potential. And so this assessment came about because I've been using it with clients on one-on-one. And this is the first time in this new book that we make it available to the general public. And it gives you such an advantage and here's why. I created this assessment based on various sciences and psychologies, things like personality types like Myers-Briggs and a left brain, right brain dominance theory, learning styles, visual auditory, kinesthetic, multiple intelligence theory out of Harvard University. And so it was a meld and a synergy where I realized after 32 years as a brain coach, it's not how smart you are. It's actually how are you smart? It's not how smart your kids are. It's how are they smart? It's not how smart your team is. It's actually how are they smart? And this assessment will show you your brain animal, which is your cognitive type. So here it is. Imagine the word code, C-O-D. This is your brain code. It's an acronym, like a simple mnemonic. The C in code stands for the animal is the cheetah. The defining trait of a cheetah is they implement, they apply, they act. So cheetahs are very intuitive. They thrive in fast-paced environments because they adapt very quickly, right? They learn so that they can apply. The O in code are your owls. And your owls, the defining trait, is they are very logical, right? They're very rational. And so they like to research. They like to study. They love facts and figures and data. Now, even just talking about two animals, you would notice that these two animals would communicate different. These two animals would invest different or buy different. They would exercise a little bit different, right? They'd be influenced differently also as well. They would lead a team differently. The D in code is, like yourself, is a dolphin. And the dolphin are your creative visionaries. They have strong problem-solving skills. They have exceptional pattern recognition. And often they could see a future that other people can't see yet, right? A visionary like Disney or J.K. Rawlings, who wrote the Harry Potter series. And finally, the last animal, the E in code, are your elephants. And your elephants are defined by the trait of empathy, high levels of empathy and EQ. They love to bring people together, right? They love their team players also as well. If they're gonna learn or if they're gonna exercise, they love going to group classes or creating a, you know, a part of a book club and so on. So these are your four animals. And when people take the quiz, they get a personalized report. There's nothing to buy. They get a personalized report on based on your animal, this is how you could read better. Based on your animal, this is how you could remember names. Based on your animal, this is how you could communicate with other animals differently. And so I feel like if knowledge is power, then this is knowing your animal is like a superpower. You get to know yourself and know the people around you. And what it does is it takes the judgment away. It's like you get to write with your dominant hand, right? If I asked everybody right now to write their first and last name with their dominant hand, they would do it quick. The quality would be pretty good, right? It'd be very comfortable. But if I asked you to put that pen in your opposite hand, your non-dominant hand and write below it your first and last name, it probably would take longer. It probably, the quality wouldn't be as good. It'd probably feel uncomfortable. And when people are trying to learn something outside of their brain animal, it's like learning something with their non-dominant hand. It takes longer, it feels uncomfortable. And the quality, the fidelity is not quite as good. And so sometimes when we're interested in a subject, sometimes the way you prefer to learn your brain animal is different than the teacher's brain animal and you miss each other. It's like two ships in the night. You pass each other without even recognizing the other ones there and you don't have that connection. And so it's interesting once you understand your specific brain animal, how much power it gives you in your career, at school, in your life. So what you're saying is if you reward me with a fish for a trick that I do, I'll do very well or? Nothing like that. But the understanding that you are very creative and you can visualize in the power of your imagination, even animals, they communicate differently. I mean, even if you think about it, their jobs would be different. Like an owl would be a logical thinker. They would fall. Like we had our entire team, a few dozen people take the assessment, obviously. It's interesting, 100% of our customer service team are elephants. Why? They have high levels of empathy. They're our community builders. They're very compassionate. So they wanna serve, right? You know, our student success is their success. Our CFO is an owl. You know, they love data and they love the numbers, right? Our CEO, the leader of our team, my business partner of 17 years, she's a dolphin because she has a vision of affecting a billion brains, no brain left behind. And so it's interesting. You can even hire and manage based on brain types. So your owls are gonna be your data analysts, your engineers, your accountants, right? Your research scientists, your software developers, your cheetahs are often entrepreneurs. They could be EMTs. They could be sales representatives, professional athlete. Your dolphins could be amazing writers like yourself or they could be a marketing specialist or they could be a film director. Elephants would really thrive in, let's say human resource manager or social worker or a PR specialist, a teacher. And then you could also see what famous people or even non-famous, like I talked about friends, right? If people are familiar with friends, then I would say that Chandler was a cheetah, just fast acting on intuition, just moved, doesn't do a lot of thinking. You would say Ross, Ross Geller was the scientist, is an owl, very studious, a professor. You could go to Monica, Monica was the elephant. Always wanted to host all the parties and be the center of the community. You could go to Phoebe, who's the creative with through song and dance and imagination. So you can see this in everything. You see it in pop culture, you can see it in the people around you. So I'm interested, people right now don't do it now, don't take the test, but text it to a friend and they're gonna text you a picture of their animal. And it would explain a lot about their behavior. Yeah, I've, throughout my career, I've been accused of flying at 30,000 feet. And... You're a visionary. Yeah, really, whoever met me, he said, "'Cheese, you're flying at 30,000 feet. "'How do you do that?' That's what I do. So I'm glad I'm a dolphin, I guess. But you should be glad you are whatever this animal is, right? And we are composite of all these things, right? You're a primary, secondary, we're a blend, but it's not like if you're right-handed, it doesn't mean you don't use your left hand. It's just that happens to be your strength. So it's a great way of discovering your strengths and the strengths of other people around you. Before I let you go, the other big change in this book is AI. And of course, AI is on everybody's mind. And if it isn't, it should be, and it's even on President Biden's mind. Give us your thoughts on this. So the new chapters we add to Limitless Expanded was really about the science of momentum. We still cover the how to change your mindset, your motivation, all the methods for reading faster, improving your memory and all, and your focus and everything. And we added a whole new section on momentum because that's what people want in the new year. This escape velocity and knowing your brain type will allow you to have more momentum because you're playing to your strengths and you have less friction. Another thing we talk about a whole chapter on nitropics. I've never in 30 years talked about brain supplements or nitropics, things that enhance your focus, your mood, your mental energy. Another section is on AI. And how does it create momentum? Well, my dominant question in this category was, how do you use AI to enhance your HI, your human intelligence? Because I don't see artificial intelligence as artificial, I see it as augmented intelligence, right? It's there to support you, like all technology. And so there's simple things you could do to accelerate your intelligence and your productivity using AI. So let's say you wanted to learn a new subject. I mentioned this word neuroplasticity and instead of looking it up in the dictionary, you could go into AI and say, explain to me neuroplasticity as if I am eight years old and see what comes out of it, right? If you wanted to be able to use things like, we have a podcast too also as well. Sometimes I don't get the book in time for if they happen to be having a conversation with an author and I don't wanna read the digital one as I told you before. And so I'll go into AI and say summarize this book. And or if I have a guest, I will say, propose 10 questions for Steve, for Dr. Gundry, that he hasn't been asked before that would be very relevant to our audience of brain health enthusiasts. You don't have to use things verbatim. I rarely ever, ever do, but it gives you some kind of foundation for your creativity. Another way of using it limitless, the largest chapter is on memory improvement because I think having a strong memory nowadays is so essential because with people forgetting, I believe two of the most costly words are, I forgot and I forgot to do it. I forgot to bring it up. I was gonna say, I forgot to go to that meeting. I forgot that conversation. I forgot the person's name, just on and on. But when you have a great memory, every area of your life gets better, right? Your relationships, your health, everything. Your income, certainly. When you can easily remember facts and figures and sales presentations, client information, product information. But when we talk about the principles and the techniques in the book, you could apply it to AI. So if I wanted to remember a TED Talk, I could say, hey, build me a mind palace, one of the techniques that we teach that we took from a 2,500 year old methodology from ancient Greece. Or I could say, hey, I'm studying this area of business or our brain. And can you mind map this for me? And a mind map is a whole brain note-taking technique and it can do that for you also as well. There's something called retrieval practice. Remember I said that the questions are the answer that you could test yourself. So AI could test your reading speed, your reading comprehension. It could also provide you with thoughtful questions to quiz yourself. So memory is three phases. You encode, you store, you retrieve. So it could help you with that active retrieval, which is a wonderful way to learn also as well. So really the AI applications are truly limitless, right? There's so many different ways to use it. And you don't have to be afraid of it, right? They're just like a tool. Like at first the internet could be overwhelming or social media could be any kind of technology could. But once you put a little bit of thought into it, you can even use AI to learn AI. And that's pretty meta, right? Same thing with your brain. Like your brain is the one organ that named itself, right? Think about that. But AI is a wonderful way to even learn AI for those people who like compare AI to a tree and just see what comes out. Not to bother anybody, but I hope everybody realizes that this entire podcast, if you're seeing this on YouTube, this is actually not Jim Quik that I'm talking to. It is Jim Quik's bot. And you can see how amazing it is. Now, we're just joking. It's actually him, but that is a bit disconcerting. In the future, will Jim Quik's bot be teaching these courses and answering questions? We do have an AI component to our courses. So we do have a quick bot when people join our academy that they have access to and they could ask questions and we've preloaded it with all their courses. And it's remarkably, remarkably accurate. You go into a bot and say, how would Jim Quik memorize the periodic table? And it'll come out with our applications for our techniques and everything. So yeah, we offer that as personalized inside our courses. But yeah, soon, they'll have like holograms and VR and all this technology. But the most important technology I just wanna remind everybody in this conversation is the technology that's between your ears. This three-pound organ of gray and white matter that really has created all the technology in the world, right? The challenge is we upgrade our technology all the time. You get the new iPhone, you get the new apps, you upgrade all these things. But when's the last time we took time to upgrade the most important thing, which is our brain? I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. Make sure to check out the next one here.