I Want You To DO THIS EVERY DAY To Improve Your MEMORY | Jim Kwik EP 269

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:54What are some daily habits or rituals that you have to just sharpen your mind every single day that others can apply? People are concerned that they're growing older, but I could say you can improve your memory regardless your age your background Your career your diet level education your financial situation your gender your health situation your IQ anything it could be improved Here's the thing one third of your of your memory is Predetermined by biology and genetics, but that's so exciting because that means two-thirds the majority of it twice as much is Completely in your control. That's cool And so the things that move the needle, for example, are like 10 things that I'm thinking about that's going to move the needle completely of that two thirds.

1:34So it's a good diet, right? So a good diet because you are what you eat, right? And so there's certain brain foods that we know is good for your mind. You know, everything from blueberries to walnuts and everything, right? So there's good diet. And number two, killing ants, killing you the automatic negative thoughts, which is a big for a lot of people. Remember, your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk and it's a practice, right? So you want to be able to eliminate the negative talk and you can't just eliminate something you just you have to replace it with something else Right exactly.

2:02You can't just stop smoking You have to start doing something else because here's the thing that you want to avoid a lot of people start Taking pride in how bad certain things are in their life. It gives them significance very much so you nailed it My memory is so bad if I don't write my grocery list and triplicates I won't remember it and like oh you think you're forgetful. This is how forgetful I am Or this is how bad people also have this with busyness. It is so bad nowadays Everybody has to be busy because that means that person must be so important. And so we've got to get off that cult of being busy.

2:33Congratulations for being the most busy person. Right, exactly. Not everybody has things to do. But if people start getting pride, they start designing their life around being busy. And they wonder why they're all stressed out all the time. Number three that's good that you have to do daily is exercise. Because your body and your brain, it's connected. And there's actually certain exercises you can do to build your brain power. So, for example, juggling. extremely good for your brain. It's been shown in Oxford last year, there was a study saying that jugglers actually have bigger brains. You could actually build more white matter.

3:02It's also a great tip for speed reading because as you're juggling three balls, your eyes, you only have two of them, you can't focus on all three. So you have to soften your gaze and take in more peripheral vision. It trains you that way so you can actually take in more words as you're reading. But it actually builds more white matter as you're doing it. There's certain exercises also we teach people. This is a field called educational kinesiology where certain body movements actually helps build your brain power. But there's been so many exercises for people, like eating with the opposite hand is actually good for your brain.

3:30Brushing your teeth. Brushing your teeth with the opposite hand. Very, very good exercise to actually build your brain power. So exercise is really good. But I mean just being physically fit is good for your brain, right? It's good for staving off a lot of brain challenges. Okay, fourth thing that people need to incorporate is brain nutrients. Because a lot of people, they're not getting it from their soil or maybe their food. So maybe a supplement in certain things, right? Number five, this is a big one. And I know you're big on this. a positive peer group because you are what you eat, but you are also who you spend time with.

3:58Of course. So if you want a bigger brain, you want your mind to be active and everything, be around people that challenge you, that support you, that teach you things, that encourage you, that are positive because we are the average of the five people, as you know, that we spend the most time with. Number six that's good for your brain is clean environment. They find that, and you know this, when people start cleaning their desk, that their external world starts reflecting their internal world and vice versa. right so a clean environment helps you be more organized and inside also as well number seven that's good for your brain in terms of lifestyle what i do every single day is things like sleep sleep is so important people that's where you're rebuilding you're rejuvenating restoring but we live there's this whole epidemic of sleeplessness and people aren't getting enough sleep like there's there's some zones here that people like you know i'm not spending time with the right people or maybe you know i'm really not getting that much sleep or maybe my diet or my negative self-talk There's one or two things that if you fix it and you put energy there, your business could double.

4:54Because you're doubling. That's number seven. Number eight is brain protection. So important to protect your brain. Because people who are accident prone or they're doing a lot of extreme sports, they're active. You want to make sure you wear helmets. Because your brain is resilient. But this controls everything. If you smash it, you're done. My father, 10 years ago, got in a car accident. He's still recovering. He's not the same person. He can't work anymore. You know, he forgets a lot. It's a challenge. And see, that's why I do what I do, because I never want people to suffer the way that I was struggling every single day for like 15 years straight.

5:34When this young lady who read the 30 books in 30 days and saved her mother's life, she gave me one of those books. And inside the book was this photograph, and she was using it as a bookmark, and it was her mother in the hospital. It reminded me when I was in the hospital. And so, yeah, take care of your brain. Number nine is new learnings. Learn something new every single day. Never let your head hit that pillow being the same as it was when it woke up, ever. We've learned more about your brain in the past 20 years than the previous 2 ,000 years. And, you know, according to science, neurogenesis, that your brain can create new brain cells even as it grows older.

6:07And neuroplasticity is saying you can make new, your brain is like plastic. It's so malleable, but just having a new thought creates more connections. And so Einstein's brain wasn't any bigger than anybody else's, but he had more connections than people, than most people in certain areas, and those connections come from new learnings. And that's all learning is, is connecting something you don't know to something you know, and making new connections like that. So always new learnings and always challenge yourself. And that's probably the most out of it. And then finally, number 10, what I try to practice every single day is stress management.

6:37You know, if you want to know what the biggest obstacle is for people's brains is stress. stress creates cortisol, adrenaline in your body, and it's really good for fight or flight. It's not really good if you need to take a test. It's not really good if you need to study. It's not really if you need to read reports and journals and learn something brand new or learn a language. That'll shut down parts of your brain. So those are the ten things that I focus on every single day. That's what's gonna move the needle more than anything.

7:15Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

8:05Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.