Jim Kwik: How to Train Your Brain to Learn Anything Faster

0:00Tired of feeling overwhelmed by information, struggling to focus, or forgetting key details that could unlock your next level of success? Today we sit down with the world's number one brain coach, Jim Quick, author of the global bestseller, Limitless, who breaks down the exact mindset, motivation, and methods you need to supercharge your cognitive performance. This is the owner's manual for your mind, covering everything from finding your brain animal to fighting digital distractions. So get ready to learn faster, earn more, and completely transform how you operate. It all starts right about now.

0:34Your brain is like this incredible supercomputer and your self-talk is a program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering names, you won't remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your computer not to. People truly understood how powerful their mind is. They wouldn't say or think something they didn't want to be true. And that's not to say you have a negative thought and ruin your life any more than eating a donut would ruin your life. But if you eat that donut 30 times a day, every single day, there would definitely be consequences. Same thing with our thoughts.

1:00This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. Neuroscience is kind of on my mind. I'm fascinated by what it takes to learn and how the brain works. We got to go to the expert, and that's Jim Quick. He's the author of Limitless and just a brain badass. That's what I'll call you, Jim.

1:39What's up? Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate it. Thanks, everyone, who's tuning into this brain upgrade conversation.

1:49How are we going to learn more about the brain, how we learn better? I've got four boys, and they're young, and they're growing up. I see the homework they're doing that I did myself 40 years ago, and I'm like, These guys should have mandated reading of limitless. What do we have to do to make that happen? Limitless is really an owner's manual for your brain. Your brain is your number one wealth building asset. Everyone is listening. Nobody is paid. It's not like it was hundreds of years ago where our value in society was our brute strength. Today, it's our brain strength. It's no longer your muscle power.

2:14It's important to have, but it's also your mind power. And the faster you can learn, the faster you could earn. Because knowledge today is not only power, it's knowledge is profit. That's interesting. In school, they teach you what to learn, math, history, science. But there's zero classes on how to learn. And I really feel like that's the thing that's missing. You talk about your children, they're learning things that may or may not be that relevant. But certainly what is very relevant is learning how to focus, learning how to concentrate, learning how to think, learning how to understand, learning how to solve problems, learning how to get in flow states and master your habits, learning how to remember things.

2:47You can do all those things, then everything in your life gets easier. You can learn faster. You can apply that towards money, marketing, management, martial arts, music, and everything gets easier. It's the ultimate skill to have. It's an area called meta-learning, the science of learning how to learn. And learning can be fun, something that can be easier. People are working way too hard to learn, to study, to memorize a speech they have to give on stage or video, sales video or script and remembering names. Or they buy books and they sit on their shelf unread and become shelf help, not self-help.

3:15There's a huge opportunity here for people to upgrade their number one wealth building technology, which is your brain. And that's the nature of my work. If you can master yourself, you can master anything. We're such complex people. We externalize so many things. It's like, how do I master these things around me? We try to control when we need to focus more internally. External world is a reflection of our internal world, no doubt. There's a version of ourself that's patiently waiting. The goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced to that person. I feel like we're happiest when we make progress.

3:45Limitless is not about being perfect. It's just about advancing and progressing. And you control the controllables. You create a four-minute test that's in the book. It's also online. and don't tell you you're a brain animal. And once you understand it, it opens up whole new worlds of possibility and potential. It's interesting. People could take the test at mybrainanimal.com. People could go through it and they could post it online. They could tag us both so we can see what the dominant animal is in your community. Remember this word code, the C are your cheetahs. And if you're a cheetah, your dominant trait is action.

4:13These are individuals that adapt extremely quickly. They thrive in fast-paced environments. They have strong intuition. They implement and they act. It's just like a second nature to them. The O are your owls and their dominant trait is logic. So these are people who love data. They love facts. They love figures, formulas. They're very logical and rational. Even think about it. A cheetah would learn differently, but they'd also buy differently than an owl who needs evidence, who needs case studies. The D in code are your dolphins and your dolphins, their dominant trait are creativity. You have an incredible imagination.

4:46They're great problem solvers. They are often entrepreneurs that could see, they have a vision of their brand or their business that maybe other people can yet catch up with. You know, they don't see it yet. They're very passionate about behind it. They're great with pattern recognition. And then finally, the E are your elephants. And your elephants, their primary dominant trait is empathy. These are people who are very compassionate. They are people, people. The interpersonal skill is very strong. They have a lot of empathy, so they care. They want people to feel seen. They want people to feel heard.

5:14They use inclusive language instead of me and I. They use more words like we and us. And it's interesting because these four brain types, they learn differently. It's kind of like if somebody's listening and they remember a time where they didn't get something. For some reason, they're frustrated. Maybe the way the teacher teaches is different than the way that you learn. And like their brain type is different than your brain type. And you're like two ships in the night. You pass each other and there's no connection. You don't even recognize the other ones there. Everybody has a dominant brain type.

5:40It could change over time. But just like if you're right-handed, it doesn't mean you don't use your left hand. It doesn't mean you're not strong in other areas, but you have a certain trait that is dominant and it makes your life easier. We had our team take this assessment and we're making it free for your audience. So it's, again, mybrainanimal.com. You know, they'll get prescriptions on how to read faster, improve their memory, give speeches without notes, but also how to sell and how to be able to market, how to be able to parent. Because that's all brain type. Everything's coming from this control center between our ears.

6:09For example, our team took it and 100 % of our customer service team are elephants. We didn't even hire for that. But when you know what your strength is, you're going to look for places where you're in your element, right? The roles and responsibilities that go to your passions and your power. And our customer service team are elephants. Why? Because they have high empathy. They want people to feel seen and heard. Their success is based on our student success. They're our community builders. They pull people together. Our CFO is an extreme owl, loves the numbers, loves the data. My business partner, our CEO, she's a dolphin.

6:43She's our visionary that's holding the vision constant. Once you understand how people's brains are, you would sell to these different brain types different. You would coach them differently. You would market to them differently. You would even relate and relate personal relationships differently because it's kind of like love languages. Love languages. I was thinking that same thing, Jim. I was going to think about my wife and I communicating. This would work for our communication probably too. So much so, because in love languages, we tend to express love the way we prefer to receive it. But two people could have different types and then miss each other, even though they sincerely love each other.

7:14Even in communication style, you'll see cheetahs are direct and they're decisive. They try to get straight to the point. Their speech is concise. They focus on action. They dislike beating around the bush because it just takes time. Owls communicate differently. They prefer details. They prefer a logical sequence, a presentation of facts and figures and data. They're just more rational that way. Dolphins would communicate differently. They'd be more expressive. They would often speak about the bigger picture, about future plans, about innovative ideas. They're very passionate and excited about possibility.

7:44And your elephants, their communication is keen on understanding, understanding and validating the feelings and perspectives of others. They're more patient. They take the time to listen. But even when you think about from a sales situation, you have had tremendous success as a business marketing podcast. Also, if you're selling to a cheetah, they appreciate directness. They appreciate value efficiency. Skip the small talk, present the key benefits, demonstrate how the product or service can give them immediate results. But for an owl, they're different. They respect evidence. They appreciate well-researched presentations, statistics, case studies.

8:16Be prepared to answer in-depth questions to give them time to ponder over their decisions. And dolphins, if you're selling to them, speak to their visions. Show them how your offering fits into a larger picture or how it could pave a way to future innovations. engage them in possibility of big ideas. And if you're selling to an elephant, yes, vision is good and data is good, but the relationship is paramount for an elephant. So the value relationship, they value trust. You want to spend time understanding their needs, demonstrate you genuinely care about their success, that you're going to be there post-sale.

8:46And so there's different ways, but my point in bringing this up is once you understand how your brain works, you could work your brain, then you could personalize it. That's interesting. You could text this to your team, text it to your family, your spouse. It takes a judgment out of also because it explains their behavior a lot based on their brain type. And then also takes a self-judgment off of ourselves in terms of recognizing where we're strong and the traits that we have or lack. What Jim just broke down for you there isn't just so you know yourself, which is super important. It's so you how you know how to apply yourself against different type to lead to the activities and the actions that you want to happen.

9:20And that's real value, Jim. I really appreciate that breakdown. And I was sitting there going, so here's my problem. I was sitting there listening to you talk and I go, damn, if a cheetah and a dolphin had a baby, I'm it. And I'm not sure which one I am. I know I'm creative probably more than anything. I'm not type A. I'm definitely more creative. Focus is a superpower nowadays. We need to be able to generate focus and concentrate to get things done. Cheetah prefer short bursts of focus. They use techniques that we teach in Limitless, like the Pomodoro technique, where you focus for 25 to 45 minutes intensely for short periods.

9:53Then you follow it and then you do a little brain break. But this would align with a cheetah's fast-paced nature. They could also, during these brain breaks, incorporate some kind of physical movement because they get a little restless sitting all the time before and after a focus session. They help them to focus. A cheetah would give them clear goals. Cheetahs work best when they have a clear target and a destination. So setting specific achievable goals are very strong for them. But owls, they work a little different. You can enhance their focus by something simple like organizing their workspace, minimizing clutter, having a structured plan for meetings and tasks, breaking things down into bite-sized bits to maintain their focus to prevent overwhelm.

10:28See them scheduling deep work sessions. Dolphins are different. With our dolphins, we have them mind mapping things, things which is a visual note-taking, making way that they can see the whole picture. We give them creative breaks to help them reinvigorate, to prevent burnout. We have a variety of tasks because dolphins could lose focus if they get bored. Elephants are different. Elephants, it's all about their focus comes from other people. So working in teams or groups can help elephants stay focused and stay on task. They draw energy from social interactions. They love maybe even having, they benefit from constant, consistent routines that involve regular breaks and time for them to connect with themselves and reflect and have empathy and all that.

11:09This is one of my favorite quotes from the book. I'm going to jump right into it. Knowledge is power. That's lie number four. New belief, knowledge has to be acted on. Knowledge combined with action equals power. Your brain is like this incredible supercomputer and your self-talk is a program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering names, you won't remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your computer not to. People truly understood how powerful their mind is. They wouldn't say or think something they didn't want to be true. And that's not to say you have a negative thought and ruin your life any more than eating a donut would ruin your life.

11:39But if you eat that donut 30 times a day, every single day, there would definitely be consequences. Same thing with our thoughts. When I go to events and speak, if there's time, I'll do these demonstrations. Let's say there's 5 ,000 people in the audience. We'll pass around the microphone and 100 people introduce themselves and I'll memorize all their names. Or they'll give me, we'll put a whiteboard on the stage and they'll write down 100 words or numbers or whatever. I'll memorize it. But I always tell people, I don't do this to impress you. I do this to express to you what's possible. Because the truth is every single one of your listeners, they could do that too, regardless of their age or their background or education level, financial situation, gender history, IQ.

12:13We just weren't taught. On this mission for the past 32 years, I grew up with learning challenges. I had a traumatic brain injury when I was five. I had migraines every day. I thought it was normal. I would have balance issues. I would be very awkward. It took me three years longer to learn how to read. I was put in special education. When I was nine, I was slowing down the class and being teased pretty harshly. A teacher came to my defense and from the whole class pointed to me, said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. But that label became my limit. So talk about mindset.

12:41Every single time I did badly in school, I would say, oh, because I have the broken brain. Every time I wasn't picked for sports, I was a guy with a broken brain. So that was my mindset. And it's really hard to achieve anything beyond what you believe is possible, right? Especially your belief about yourself. At the same time, when I was going through my challenges, when I was seven, I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's. It's heartbreaking to anyone to ever experience a family member having dementia. You know, especially when I was five, six, she would call me by my father's name. She would repeat something she just said 30 seconds ago.

13:10So we donated all the proceeds to Limitless. In the first couple of years, we sold a million copies of the book, 40 different languages. We donated it all to charity. We built schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, Alzheimer's research, you know, a memory of my grandmother. But I bring this up because I think that is philosophy. You learn to earn, to return, to have more, to be able to give and have that impact. That being said, I will do this tirelessly and I'll do this in front of audiences. And even though I'm very introverted, my superpower growing up as a kid was being invisible because I never knew the answers.

13:40And I was always being picked on. So I always slump down, try to take up less space because I don't want to be seen. Sit behind the tall kid in class or sit all the way in the back. And my two biggest challenges were learning and public speaking because I never knew anything. But the universe has a sense of humor because what do I do every day is I speak for this thing called learning. Just a reminder to everybody that our challenges lead to change, that our struggles give us strength. I don't know one strong person that had an easy life. I just don't. My thing is I believe that we are the pilot of our minds.

14:08We don't want to be the passenger. I just want to show people really what they're capable of because I had so much struggles. I've learned some things to compensate and I feel a more obligation to share with people. Shame on me if other people are struggling with lack of focus, lack of motivation, lack of belief in themselves, just forgetfulness. All the things that we help brain fog, all the things I was struggling with for most of my life. It's from his book. It's not his quote. It's under thinking. We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. And so if you want to change, you got to take action on what Jim talked about today.

14:41And if you really want to take action, you need to get this book, Limitless. I've got it. I've skimmed through it and read it. I did my speed reading that I learned from Jim. I'm learning a lot.

14:54Jim, I can't thank you enough for your time and your gifts. Where can everyone keep up and learn more about everything you're doing? Go to brainnutrition.com and get our guide, the 30 different ingredients that have human studies that will enhance your focus, your memory. My Brain Animal is probably the most exciting revelation we've made in personal learning. It's a free test. If you're a community, it takes four minutes. Text it to your friends and family members to see what brain animal they are. It'll definitely engage some industry and conversation. You also get reports from me on how to sell and market and learn and read faster based on your brain animal.

15:24So that's at mybrainanimal.com. You get the book anywhere that books are sold. Limitlessbook.com is probably the easiest place. We have links. Just connect on social media. I would love for everybody to make me take a snapshot of wherever they're consuming this right now and tag Ryan, tag myself. So we get to see and share one thing you're going to do for a better brain. Because I think like when you share it, you get to learn it twice. It's called the explanation effect. When you learn something with the attention of teaching somebody else, you're going to learn it so much better. So if you post like the one nugget that you got out of this to your fans, your followers, your family, your friends, then you get to be able to learn, earn, and return.

15:57Because I feel like that's what we're doing, like how to become limitless in a limited world. Jim, I really appreciate you coming on. And we'll have all of that information in the show notes. You know where to find us, folks. RyanIsRight.com. We'll have the show notes, the links to these things. And let's go find out what animal you are, baby. You got to know how you learn. When you know how you learn, you can apply that to how you learn and grow with others. Thank you so much, Jim. Thanks, buddy. We'll see you guys next time. Right about now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production.

16:28visit RyanIsRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities thanks for listening