In Jim Kwik’s new book ‘Limitless’ he details his model to unlock new potential. But it’s not just about the methods, because Jim knows you need the motivation to follow through on your intentions. In the third episode of a series with Jim, he and the Amens discuss the formula that leads to limitless motivation.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Welcome to the Brain Warrior's Way Podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen.
Tana Amen: And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body.
Dr. Daniel Amen: The Brain Warrior's Way Podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain SPECT imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information visit amenclinics.com.
Tana Amen: The Brain Warrior's Way Podcast is also brought to you by Brain MD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Welcome back. We are here with our friend, Jim Kwik, author of Limitless, he has courses, he's hosted SuperheroYou conferences, which Tana and I have spoken at. He's just recognized as one of the world experts on memory and learning and his new book is just fantastic. I hope all of you get it. Go to limitlessbook.com. Jim, in this episode we're going to really talk about the model that you've been teaching from. Can you share it with the Brain Warrior's Way audience?
Jim Kwik: Absolutely. Thank you for having me on here. And so the limitless model is a three part framework for not only learning anything faster, but also unlocking human potential. And so I want to make this interactive, I want everyone to think about, who's listening, one area of your life where you feel like you're being held back. Where you feel like there are limits. Where you're not making progress. It could be in a relationship, it could be in your finances, it could be in your impact, it could be in your personal health and vitality, or it could be in your learning. Maybe you feel limited in your memory, you feel limited in your ability to read and focus. Where do you feel like you're in a box? And that box is three-dimensional, right? By definition. And the three dimensions are the three forces that keep you in that box, are the three elements of this framework.
So I want everyone to grab a piece of paper and I want you to draw three circles, and three circles, and if you can't draw it out, if you can't draw right now, just imagine in your mind. I want you to make these three circles intersecting, kind of like the symbol for the Olympics. Or maybe Mickey Mouse, two ears that crossover and then a face. So three intersecting circles, they call it a Venn diagram. So a Venn diagram. These are the three forces that keep you stuck. And it's also the same three forces that will liberate you and out of this box.
So there's three Ms. The last M is going to be your methods. And that's what this book initially was the book on speed reading, memory enhancement, learning languages and everything. And it still is. But I realized that a lot of people know what to do, but they don't do what they know because common sense is not common practice. So I said, what are the elements that are missing teaching this for 28 years field testing? And I realized they're two Ms that need to come before that.
And so the first M is your mindset. And your mindset are your set of assumptions and attitudes about something. It can be your attitudes, assumptions about how the world works. Attitudes, assumptions about what's going on because I'm meaning has a lot of power, right? Your attitudes, assumptions about health. You got to assumptions about yourself. So what would fall in this circle of mindset are things like what you believe is possible. That would be part of your mindset. Also what you believe you're capable of would be part of your mindset. So you could believe something is possible, but you might not believe you're capable of it, right? Or also what could be in this circle are things like what you believe you deserve.
So I could go straight to the third M, methods, and teach somebody how to remember people's names. But if their mindset is, "I'm not smart. I have a horrible memory. I'm too old." Then they're still going to be stuck in that box. Right? And so that belief is not going to allow that behavior to really express itself. And so that's your mindset. The second M that's adjacent to it is motivation. Motivation meaning that, and a lot of things, I talk in mindset about the seven lies to learning L-I-E Limited Idea Entertained. Lies that we globally generally accept, but are actually not true. And I help people to go through a process of unlimiting. Unlimiting is the active removal of limits in your mindset, motivation and the methods.
So going back to motivation, a lot of people feel like motivation is something that just comes and goes. It's something that people feel like they have to enjoy working out to be motivated to do it. And here's the real truth around it. A lot of people say they're motivated but they're not really because the evidence that you're motivated is not what you say. It's not even what you feel. It's whether you're doing that action consistently. Whether you're exercising consistently, whether you're eating that food, or reading each day or whatever you want to be motivated to do.
So the formula for sustainable motivation. Because if people watch the Limitless, for the namesake that movie with Bradley Cooper and Robert de Niro,~ he takes the pill and all of a sudden he has this incredible memory, learning languages. He wrote his book in like a week, and he has this incredible focus, concentration. And he has a surge of motivation. But when that pill wears off 24 hours later, everything goes back down zero, including his motivation. And a lot of people get excited about something at an event or something and they're like, "I'm going to change. I'm going to do X, Y, Z." And the next day happens, no X, Y, Z.
So here's the formula I found for sustainable motivation. And actually we should probably do a dedicated episode to this. Let's do a dedicated after this. And motivation for me is about sustainable drive. That you could be still, you could have the mindset that everything is limitless, is possible. And you have the great methods for marketing, or for health, or for learning. But if you're not motivated, you're still going to be stuck in that box. Now here's the magic and the aha. Where mindset crosses over with motivation. Mindset and motivation, you have inspiration. Meaning there are experts on mindset, there's a great book called Mindset by Carol Dweck. There are experts on motivation. They are great books on motivation and manifestos from Brendon Burchard, or there are motivational speakers. Where they cross over you have the first eye, three eyes.
The first eye is inspiration. you have inspirational speakers, you have inspirational books, you have inspirational movies. What do they do? They kind of change your mindset about what's possible and they give you a little energy and motivation, right? But you don't know what to apply that inspiration to because you don't have the methods. You're inspired, but you don't have any instruction. Where mindset crosses over with methods, where you have you believe it's possible in your mind and you even know what to do in your mind. It's ideation. That's a second eye. Ideation, right? It just stays an idea because you lack the motivation to do anything with it. And finally, where motivation crosses over with methods, you have the sustainable try it and you have the energy and you know what to do. That's implementation and that's wonderful, right? Implementation. That's the third eye. Yet you could still be stuck in that box because you're only going to be able to implement to the degree your mindset allows, to what you believe is possible, to what you believe you're capable of, to what you believe you deserve. Because all behavior is belief driven.
Now, the point that I want everyone to get to is that fourth eye, which is dead center in the middle, all right? Where all three Ms overlap or all three eyes overlap, you have the fourth eye, which is integration. Integration. Integration like integer or integral, it means you're whole. And integration means it's just who you are. And that's the limitless state that we want people in. Now, this framework I mentioned is a framework for accelerated learning, because if you're not learning to the degree you feel like you can focus, to remember, to be able to read, or think, or study, it takes the judgment out. You can be kind to yourself again, meaning that you could go and analyze it through this lens and saying, "Where is my limitation here? Is it in my mindset? Do I not believe this is possible? Do I not believe I'm capable of it? Do I not believe I deserve it?" And then you can address it from there.
Or you could go into your motivation. "Do I not have purpose around this? Do I not feel reasons for doing this? Do I not have energy to be able to complete these things? I have not broken it down into the tiny small habits." Or it could be your methodology, maybe your mindset and your motivation is there, but maybe you're using old methods for being healthy, old methods for starting a business, old methods for reading or remembering or for studying. And so it takes the judgment out and so you can address the area where you feel limited. Because really limitless is about redrawing the borders and boundaries of what's possible, right? To really recognize these constraints and then unlimit yourself and then that's where everything flows from.
It also becomes a framework for everybody who is here is to role model other people. Because if somebody is successful in the area, I believe genius leaves clues. And you can say, "Okay, what's their mindset. What do they believe? What do they believe they're capable of? What do they believe they deserve? What is their purpose? What are they doing for energy, sustainable drive? What are the small simple steps that they're taking? Or what are the methodologies, the processes that they're doing?" So mindset is all about possibility. And motivation is all about purpose. And methodology is all about the actual process. Because I believe there's always a method behind what looks like that's magic for other people. So my message really for everybody is, do not downgrade your dreams to meet this current situation. That's what everyone's doing.
Tana Amen: I like that.
Jim Kwik: They're downgrading their dreams to meet this current situation. I'm saying upgrade your mindset, your motivation, and your methods to be able to meet your dreams.
Tana Amen: I love that.
Dr. Daniel Amen: So we're going to talk about motivation in the last episode. In the last minute, do you have any tips on the method? And yes, we want people to go to limitlessbook.com, but share just one or two things on the method that can be helpful to people.
Jim Kwik: Absolutely. So one of the things that we could do for helping people to read more, and I think it's a great opportunity to put your home, to be able to read, because I think leaders are readers. Reading is to your mind, what exercise is to your body. And so one of the methods in terms of reading, most people read slow, so they're not doing it. So a lot of people buy books and they sit on your shelf and they become shelf help, not self help because buying a book is a different skill set than reading the book. And most people don't enjoy reading because they're not good at it.
So what will help level up your reading is using a visual pacer. So meaning, without skipping words, using a visual pacer like your finger, a highlighter, a pen, a pencil to underline the words, because it helps you to direct your focus. So as opposed to your attention being pulled apart, it's pulled through the information that you need to read. We have mouse on a computer, without skipping any words, what people will find, they test themselves. They'll actually read 25% to 50% faster with better focus, because it actually mitigates this process of back skipping and regressing. And that helps you. And also there's certain senses work very closely together. Like your sense of smell and taste. Like a lot of people love the taste of peaches. But they're not actually tasting a peach, they're smelling the peach. But their sense of smell and taste are so closely linked their mind doesn't discern the difference. Unless you're sick and you can't smell anything out of your nose. What does food tastes like? A lot of food tastes bland.
Just as your sense of sight and taste are closely linked, so is your sense of touch and your sense of sight. So when people use their finger while they read, they literally say that they feel more in touch with their reading. Back when people lose their sense of sight, how do they read? They use braille, right? Their sense of touch. And that helps them to be able to learn better. So I would encourage people when they're reading, the two of you, you have so many books together, like reading your books use your finger to underline and test yourself. Read for 60 seconds, count the number of lines you just read and then use your finger while you read and count the number of lines you read in 60 seconds. And that second number will be a 25, 50% lift, which is astonishing.
Tana Amen: That's so cool.
Jim Kwik: Yeah. I think reading is so important nowadays that people's schedule 10, 15-
Tana Amen: Yeah, that's something I can teach the kids really easily.
Jim Kwik: Very much so.
Dr. Daniel Amen: Awesome. All right. When we come back, maybe another tip or two with method, because I find that so fascinating. And we're also going to talk about motivation. Limitless book.com. We're here with our friend Jim Kwik, stay with us.
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