Moment 134: 10 Hacks For The Perfect Memory: Jim Kwik

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0:33We could turn this into a little master class. Go ahead. So the three keys to a better memory are... I've been thinking a lot about this in the book that I've been writing coming out soon. Called The Dary of Aseo, 33 Laws for Business and Life. And in Chapter 1, which is law one of the book, I was playing around with this idea of knowledge and skills and all of these things and the relationship they have between them. And really was trying to find advice for young people that want to get to a point where they have reputation and a big network and lots of resources. And I was trying to figure out the order.

1:11So I almost visualized it like five buckets. In the first bucket, I wrote down as knowledge. That's the first one. And these are sequential buckets. So they go from, you know, this is bucket one. And then once you fill that bucket, when you apply knowledge, it turns into a skill. And then once you have knowledge and applied knowledge, which I call skill, then you'll get these other things. Then you'll get resources. You'll get a network and you'll get a reputation. But it's those first two buckets. You can't have skills without knowledge, really. And knowledge is certainly the first one. But just having knowledge and learning without that applied skill, without that applied knowledge, which we call a skill, you'll never get the reputation, the resources and the network.

1:57And the only two buckets that no one ever can take from you, the only two buckets that anyone can never unfill is the knowledge bucket. And also the skill bucket. People can take away your reputation, they can take away your resources, they can take away your network. But they can never unfill these two buckets. And these two buckets are the first two buckets which go on to fill the other three. And that's why I think more recently in my life, I've become obsessed with learning. Am I a great learner? No. I don't think I am. Because I sit here, you know, I sit here with the greatest minds in the world.

2:30And I remember the very little of it. And it's funny as you're saying, I was like, I've been thinking this over the last couple of weeks. I've never really shared this with anybody. But I thought, gosh, you're in such a privileged position to get to meet all these incredible people. I should be like a human encyclopedia of information and wisdom. And I don't think I don't think I am. You know, I meet people that are, I sit here with them. I think you're one of them. I give this kind of everything and he's remembered everything and he knows the names of studies and he can recall names. I can barely recall names of people.

2:58So I'm like, where, where do I start? Because I'm in a privileged position meeting all these wonderful people in my listeners, Artif. Anyone's loyal to this podcast, you're like me. I actually wrote something down as you're speaking. I was thinking, what we need to do here at the Diary of a CEO after the episode ends is we need to set the audience some homework. Yeah. And what I mean by that is say, okay, Jim said these three core ideas. After the episode, I want you to go and implement them. And then I want you to like tag me on social media of you implementing them. The action after the episode and share it with me.

3:35And that's what I think we should all do because then not only are we going to listen, we're going to learn. And those are two very different things. Yeah, and I feel also when we teach something, we get to learn it twice. Meaning you share that with your friends, your family, your followers, your fans. It takes advantage of something called the explanation effect. The explanation effect says that when you learn something with the intention of explaining it to somebody else, you're going to learn it much better. And that's kind of obvious, right? If you, you know, if we talked about speed reading or the best brain foods or changing your habits, optimizing your sleep, the kind of things that we specialize in.

4:12And somebody listening had to give a TEDx talk about it the following week, would they focus better? They would have a better concentration, would they take more notes, would they ask more post more questions online? Right. They would own that information. And so I think that learning with the intention of teaching helps you to be able to certainly learn it better. I mean, that's even how you could even use, you could explain it to somebody. I mean, the whole Richard Feynman method was, you know, take this difficult subject, neuroscience, whatever happens to be, like social media marketing, AI, and explain it to me as a 5 -6 year old.

4:50You know, right? And that can, you know, and I can open up a whole thing with this conversation in terms of artificial intelligence, you know, and creatives. But I really feel like all these tools are there to augment. I don't even think it's artificial intelligence. For me, it's obviously machine learning, but it's, it's augmented intelligence. And I'm thinking like, how do I use this tool? Like how would you use a book or a computer in the internet, or whatever, to AI to enhance H .I. Like human intelligence? I'm very interested in that. People, I think, I mean, you know the Friman technique well, but I, when I came across it, it really was a game changer for me.

5:27Because it explained why I'm some, I have good comprehension in certain subject matter, and then I'm quite loose on others. Could you explain it in a simple way? You have a, you know, you speak to it in a version of it in the book, but for anybody that isn't aware of that technique. So the idea here is, anyone can make things more complex. But the idea is when you really understand something, you could simplify it in a way that makes it usable for the end result, right? And not only the end result, but the process of learning it. So meaning, I love reading the neuroscience papers and having deep conversations.

6:04And I think where, where if we've had any level of success, is translating that in a way to people where it's conversational, where they see the relevance in their daily lives, in the application, and, and, and as results oriented. And how does that impact our ability to, to learn the subject, this, this, Freiman technique? Because stage one is of the Freiman technique, from what I remember is you learn something. And then stage two is, I believe you simplify it, and then you share it, and then if you can't share it to the six year old, you go back to learning it. Right. And that, that's a great synapses of, of it.

6:44And I would say that. So how, how it builds, so every single time you have a new, there's a Oliver Wendell Holmes quote that says, a person's mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions. And so when we have, so neuroplasticity happens when we experience novelty. So we learn a new idea or something happens in our environment. It's neuroplasticity allows learning, allows adaptation, it even allows recovery from traumatic brain injury. Right. It like, I had these deficiencies, if we call them that. And I was able to compensate by creating workarounds, like somebody would do in, in some kind of program.

7:27You know, and then you start building paths. Another way of neuroplasticity, it's kind of like, if I walked through a field and there are lots of bushes, you know, I walked through once. And I didn't know not much changes. But if you take that path and you reinforce it through repetition, or space repetition, interval training, then all of a sudden it becomes more of a path and eventually it becomes a road. And it becomes a highway. And we've made that connection. So I like, I like pulling on things that are natural as metaphors. But we learn through metaphors because all of learning is taking something you don't know and connecting it to something you do know.

8:01People say learning is repetition, they just say do, just say it loads. Does that work? It does. But when we're looking at methodology, repetition, the problem with repetition, and certainly it leads, it gets a result. It's wrote learning. It's like when the, when the church has started universities and how people would teach would be the teacher or professor would say a fact and to the class and the class would repeat it. And then the teacher would say it again and the class would repeat it. And so I'm making on video if you're watching this circular motion, like wrote, like rotary, like a rotary club, they're simple as a wheel.

8:41The first half of the wheel is a teacher saying the fact, the second half of the wheel is the class repeating the fact. And you do that 50 times and then you build that pathway and you have quote unquote learning. The problem with that is it takes so much time. And now we live in an age where the amount of information is like doubling at dizzying speed. There's more information today in the newspaper than somebody in the 17th century ever came across in their whole life. You think about also blogs and social media and podcasts, it's just like it's overwhelming. So we can't be learning the same ways.

9:15Okay, so I've got a book coming out as I said and there's 33 laws and I've been saying to myself, listen, you're going to at some point start really promoting this book. So you need to memorize all 33 laws. Like I actually don't need to. I mean, so I need to look at now, what am I doing with my life? The 33 laws, I need to remember basically what the law is and then the gist of it. How would you help me do that? I can do that heartbeat. All right, so let's let's let's turn us into coaching and we could we could use just content that everyone could relate to because I don't know how much of the laws you want to share or how much you have.

9:50On top. Okay, so the method I'm going to share with you, I call a pie, P i e that three ingredients for a better memory, peace dance for place. We remember things based on where we put it. Like you put your keys in a certain spot each time you're in there, you're always going to find it because it's organized, right? You forget someone's name, you ask yourself, where do I know the person? Sometimes the context gives you the content. So that's a place is a place to store the information. The I is imagine we remember things better that we could see and imagine meaning I bet has difficult as names are to remember you remember faces.

10:31Yeah, so many people remember faces because you're more of your visual more of your brain is dedicated towards your visual cortex and takes up more real estate. So we tend to remember things we see better than we hear. So you see the face and you go to someone and you know, I remember your face, but I forgot your name every day of my life. You never go to somebody say the opposite. You never go say I remember your name, but I forgot your face. I will have people and say, I'm highly nice to see you and then I realize I didn't remember the name. We're what I'll be with that. Okay, so here here we go.

11:01So the I is imagine we tend to remember what we see. There's a proverb that says what you hear you forget, what you see you remember, what you do you understand, what you hear you forget. You heard the name you forgot it. You know, do you see you remember you saw the face remember face. So what you could see and we think in pictures when you like when you got on an airplane, it doesn't say no longer to say no smoking. Fast in your seat belts. There's just pictures and we think in pictures pictures worth a thousand words. So you want to imagine those pictures and the E and Pi in twine in twine is where you're connecting in twine means to associate or to connect.

11:32And what are you connecting the P in the eye the place in the image. So let me give you an example five buckets. But low number one. Right. Yeah, yeah, we could do the we could do the five buckets also. I was going to teach people to quickly 10 things that they could do the upgrade their brain. Less to your 10. But certainly we could apply this towards buckets to. So there are so are are blessed that the book was heavily endorsed by like the Cleveland Clinic Center for Brain Health, the founding director there, one of the top Alzheimer's research out of Harvard, Dr. Rudy Tanzi. And when I speak at these organizations, we know that about one third of your brain performance, your memory is predetermined by genetics.

12:14Two thirds is in your control. They say the metaphor is that, for example, Alzheimer's and this is like we donated a lot of proceeds to Alzheimer's research for our book is in memory of my grandmother. They say that your genetics will load the gun, but your lifestyle will fire it. Right. Kind of kind of makes sense. And it's not like all metaphors and not absolute. They're not absolutes. But this is an idea to connect something you don't know to something you know. So going to this two thirds, I'm going to give everybody right now the 10 keys, as you know it in the book, but I'm going to show you how to memorize them.

12:52But what I liked it to do whether or not people memorize them or not, and I find that people will be able to do it pretty easily and effortlessly is at least rate yourself zero to 10. How much energy and effort and attention are you putting towards this area? Because everyone wants to know the one thing they could do for an incredible memory. There's just not. There's not a magic pill, but there is a process. Right. So we'll go through them fast. Number one, good brain diet. So everyone on a scale of zero to 10, 10 being the best, how much energy attention, time are you putting towards a good brain diet.

13:22So there's certain foods that are very neuro protective. And I would also say I'm not a doctor and nutritionist. Everyone's bio individual. So do allergy testing, do functional medicine testing in terms of microbiome test, nutrient profile, food sensitivity. So everyone's a little different. In general, some of my favorite brain foods, avocados, the monounsaturated fat is good for the brain blueberries. I like to call them brain berries, very neuro protective broccoli, good for your brain olive oil, good for the brain. If your diet allows eggs, the colon and eggs is good for causing the health.

13:58Green leafy vegetables, like kale and spinach. And now again, some people are allergic to kale. So that wouldn't be for you. Another one, I would say wild sardines or like wild wild salmon or sardines. Like your brain is mostly fat. So those fish oils, turmeric is a great brain food, meaning it helps the lower inflammation. You can use that while you're cooking walnuts. Everybody's just waiting for you to say chocolate. Yeah, there you go. Walnuts and dark chocolate dark chocolate, not milk chocolate. So there's some of the brain food. So zero to 10 on the other side. That's not so good process.

14:35You know, food's high sugar. What does it do to the brain? So sugar is highly addictive. Right. You've had guests on here probably talking about how it's more addictive than a lot of drugs. Right. There's certain things that are not good for the brain. And I, I know again, people like we've had on our podcast where we've interviewed for the book, let people like Dr. Dr. Markeman, Dr. Daniel Aiman, you know, sugar alcohol marijuana, certain things are just certain things like alcohol could some people say they use it to help them sleep. But there's a difference between getting knocked out and actually getting good deep sleep, getting good REM sleep.

15:15Sleep is just personal focus of mine. But sure, it's highly addictive. Not good. A lot of people are also hyper. You know, the ADHD, the hyper behavior, a lot of times you could eliminate sugar. But in the US schools, it's tough. You know, they would have any vending machines there with all the pop and the sodas and the, you know, mom, I just, yeah. But to get through the list, zero to 10, how good is your diet? Number two, and I'll go through these fast killing ants. Ants, killing ants actually, clean, be proven to be good for your brain. Ants, I get this from Dr. Daniel Aiman, automatic negative thoughts.

15:51Remember, we talked about the power of your thoughts and just keeping it, even if you say you don't have a great memory, just add a little word like yet at the end. It just changes, you know, the potentiality of that statement. So in zero to 10, how encouraging, optimistic are your thoughts and your beliefs. Number three, in those specific quarter again, is exercise. Okay. There's so much research talking about the power of movement and the brain. When you move, by the way, there's studies show that when you listen to your podcast, when people are listening to this podcast and they happen to be doing something rhythmic, going for a nice walk with the dogs or on an elliptical, they'll actually understand the information and retain it better.

16:31When your body moves, your brain grooves. Just remember that. When your body moves, your brain grooves. When you move your body, you create brain -derived, neurotropic factors, B, D, and F, which is like fertilizer for the brain. It's like fertilizer promoting neuroplasticity. Number four, brain nutrients. And this is, I always prefer people get it from their own foods. But, you know, I think you could get so much data nowadays. You could do a nutrient profile because if you're lacking, if your vitamin D levels are low, you're not going to perform your brain -stocking perform at it's best. You know, if you're not getting your omega -3s, your brain is mostly made out of fat, your DHAs, your vitamin C, your vitamin Bs.

17:15Everybody comes here and talks to me about bloody vitamin D and omega -3. Everybody says the same two things. Supplements work for that, right? Disupplements work for vitamin D. Quality supplements. I would, again, prefer people get it from sunlight and prefer people get it from natural sources, like, like, eating fish or whatever. Damn, I don't go out in the sunlight enough. I need to fix that. Yeah, you've had guests talking about the power of sunlight first thing in the morning to reset their circadian rhythm to help them sleep. You know, for me in the morning, I try to do, I try to get the elements in my life.

17:47So I think about thousands of years ago, they thought the four elements made up of, made everything up that you see. So it's like, you know, in Babylonian times, in Greek times, you know, four elements of air, water, fire, and earth. And so, like, I don't know, I take this approach in the morning, you don't have to biohack everything. You can do it for free. Go out there, outside, and you can get some earth, get your feet on the ground, right? Really simple to do. To feel more grounded and more connected. And there's those so, and I think in energetic, people talk about post -electromagnetic fields and everything.

18:21But I don't know, I feel more grounded when I just walk in the grass, simple thing people could do. And then I'm thinking about air. I could do my, my, my deep breathing, or some people do fire breathing, alpha breathing, Wim Hof breathing. First thing in the morning, clear the cobwebs of the night, and then some water, drink some water, or take your cold shower. You get to integrate it, however, whatever your morning routine is. And then fire is the, is the sunlight for me, you know, first first thing in the morning. But I just find that any of the biohacking stuff, and people follow me on Instagram, well, you know, I have my toys and everything else.

18:53They're just a mimic nature, you know, a lot of the times, you know, the red lights and the, the, the cold plunges and all that, all that stuff. Nature, point number five is a clean environment. Yeah, so after brain nutrients, zero to 10, brain yourself, five is a clean environment. And I, this is for everything. And including the quality of the air that you're breathing. Some, you know, like I had somebody on our podcast talking about the neuro toxins and brand new carpets of furniture, you know, in terms of what they're sprayed with. And the off -gassing that comes from it and how it can have toxic effect, you know, on your brain.

19:30You wrote air pollution is a massive and underrated health risk. They, they cause up to 30 % of all strokes. Life expectancy is appreciably lower in cities than in the countryside, even accounting for differences in wealth and lifestyle. Yeah, I mean, we sort of we sorted through a number of research, you know, talking about air pollution, a water pollution also as well. You know, in terms of the certain residues that tap into being in, whether it's in tap water or what have you or some people are concerned about plastics that come from bottles also as well. And other people are concerned about we've had a couple episodes talking about EMFs, you know, just the.

20:10How does that impact my brain there? I don't think we know, you know, all I know is that the brain hasn't changed a lot in the past 100 ,000 years, but technology certainly has. And, you know, and we talk about, you know, these these videos that we make about morning routine and evening routines and millions of views, just simple things like don't touch your phone the first 30 minutes of the day or the last 30 minutes of the day. Something so simple. And then seven's brain protection. Brain protection. So clean environment, even just cleaning your desktop, you know, your external world's reflection of your internal world are making your bed just helps you get how you do anything is how you do everything.

20:47Number number, number, sorry, that was number six. Yeah, number seven is sleep. So very concerning with sleep and brain performance. We know when you don't sleep, how is your thinking the next day? You know, how's your ability to solve problems? How's your ability to focus? Remember things. When you sleep, if you have long term memory issues, get a sleep study done. That's where you can solid a short to long term memory is during sleep. When you sleep, the sewage system in your brain kicks in because there's, you know, energy to do so also as well. And your brain doesn't, it's not, doesn't stop at night.

21:19If anything, it's, it's sometimes ways more active. It's consolidating short to long term memory. It's cleaning out beta emboiled plaque that lead to brain aging challenges. Often a lot of the studies show that with a lot of disease, there's a kind of a sleep deficiency component also as well. Sometimes I wear a device to monitor it because it's not that people ask the quantity of sleep what's the perfect amount, seven, eight, nine hours. It's absolutely not the quantity is the quality of your deep sleep and your REM sleep. Your deep sleep you can imagine is where you're recovering your body. Your REM sleep is where you're restoring your, your mind.

21:53So seven is sleep, zero to ten, you know, how much focus energy attention are you putting towards it? We've done stress management, which we talked about how stress impacts the brain. We talked about sleep, we've talked about. Yeah, so the last three really quickly are protect your brain. Yeah. Wear a helmet, zero to, you know, your brain is very resilient but it's very fragile. So I get to work with a lot of sports figures that have post concussions or TBI's. Yeah. You know, and so we have protocols for that and obviously see a doctor, zero to ten, rate yourself. New learning is big. We talked about the power of learning.

22:29That's novelty. And for me, reading, reading is to your mind with exercises your body. I think it's the best people at all fancy apps and everything else. I think, look, someone who has decades of experience, like yourself or your guests and they put into a book and you can sit down and read that book in a few days. You can download decades in the days. That's the biggest advantage, right? And reading is incredible exercise for your mind, especially the way we teach it. And then finally, stress management, which you mentioned, you know, zero to ten. How well are you mitigating stress and coping with stress?

23:00What mechanisms and tools are rituals or practices do you have? You know, my go to is meditation.

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