How to Strengthen Your Memory at Any Age with Brain Coach Jim Kwik

0:00Hi, friends. I am so glad you're here. Well, apparently one of the rights of midlife is walking you to a room and having absolutely no idea why you went in there in the first place or open your phone to do one thing resurfacing 20 minutes later and realizing you somehow did everything except the thing you picked it up for. We joke about it, but underneath the joke is a real question. Why does my own mind sometimes feel less reliable than it used to? And how much of that is really about memory when we're asking our brains to absorb more information, switch between more demands, and compete with technology designed in a rough-dress all day long. Jim Quick has spent more than three decades teaching people had to learn, focus, and remember. His own path began after a childhood brain injury left him struggling in school and believing he had what he calls a broken brain. He went on to build quick learning, host the Quick Brain podcast, and write the best-selling book Limitless. His new book, Limitless Daily, turns that work into 366 short practices for

1:06training the mind. Today, I want to understand what it takes to trust your brain again, how memory actually works, and what our phones and AI may be training us to stop doing while learning new things matters as we get older, and which small habits can help us stay sharp for decades to come. Insurance isn't one-size-fits-all. That's why customers have enjoyed Progressive's Name Your Price Tool for years now. With the Name Your Price Tool, you tell them what you want to pay, and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So, whether you're picking out your first policy, or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit Progressive.com. Find a rate that works for you with the Name Your Price Tool. Progressive casualty insurance, company, and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. I have tried a lot of skin care that promises a world and delivers at nothing, so I was skeptical about one skin until I actually started using it. What caught me first was a story. It isn't a beauty brand that stumbled into science. It's four PhD longevity scientists

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3:11sitting here thinking like how long have Jim and I known each other? And it's really been we're all grown up now. Yeah. That's what I was about. You know, I've interviewed you for my book. I've interviewed you before. You've interviewed me before. And I was thinking about you coming on the show and I was just thinking about kind of the feeling underneath everything of where we are right now during this time in life. I just, you know, I turned 55. I'm going to be 56 years. And I think a lot about women in this community and we we talk and we, you know, we laugh about things like, Oh, I've lost my words or I went into this room and I don't know why I went into this room. And I feel like you have so many of the answers for these women that we're going to get into. But I want to talk about this. You know, we reach midlife and we we hear things like, you know, my brain is just not what it used to be. Are you hearing that all the time from people these days? Yeah. And I don't want it's I don't want people to know that a lot of this is normal. People are going through. I feel like sometimes we're so fearful of that we're going through it alone. But it helps

4:16and it's I kind of gives you grace knowing that we're in this, you know, people are in this together and they're not alone. That doorway, it's called the doorway effects. I call it. When you go through a doorway, you're switching contexts is it's kind of like when you open up a tab on your computer like a new one because you have an idea and you open up a tab and you forget why you open that tab because the content that context from the previous tab is not going with you to the next tab or and that's why when you walk back into the room, usually it helps trigger the previous room. It helps trigger why you're going into the kitchen or what have you. I like that you say we're not alone in that though because I do I open up a lot of tabs all day long on the computer and off of the computer. And I think that sometimes I think it's a memory problem and then my question is is it a memory problem or is it an attention problem if you're doing that over and over again? Well, especially when it faces a pair of menopause menopause, it's also like, you know, things are changing. Estrogen could affect the brain, you know, even the hippocampus were memory. Also sleeps could change could be changing as well. Also the mental load that women are

5:22caring also as well. And some some is their attention is just fully overloaded, which could certainly be make it more difficult to remember things. But yeah, focus and attention is really key. What determines whether or not something actually makes it into the memory in the first place because I get to be honest, you know, when you were talking about brain early on, I'm like, oh, my brain, okay, I'd love to learn how to read a little faster and I'd like to memorize a list of things. But when we actually talk about memory, it's now something that takes up a lot of my time and attention to really to focus on and practice. Yeah, I think I really think there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's more of a train memory and on train memory. You know, the challenges is we're just not exercising our memories much. You know, in life, I find that you have to whatever you want, you have to use. It's like if you want more energy, you have to use your energy. You can't just sit on the couch and eat potato chips and binge watch, say, you're not going to have more energy. If you want more strength, you have to use your strength, right? To be able to lift, lift heavy things and then you have more of it. Same thing with focus.

6:26If you want greater focus, you have to utilize your focus. If you want a better memory, you have to use the memory that you already have. And so it's, it really is user-lose it. It could be a perishable skill when we're relying on other things to remember things for us like technology. But yeah, doing a little bit of mental exercise each day could sharpen your memory. You know, I found that, especially with my learning difficulties growing up in my broken brain, that it's fragile, but it's resilient. Let's talk about that because your story is really something. This goes back to when you were five years old. Can you talk about what happened to you and how you got to where you are today? Yeah, my inspiration was my desperation. I had an accident in kindergarten class. I had an unfortunate fall. I rushed to the emergency room. I was unconscious. I remember coming out of it. I was just having migraines every day. I just thought it was normal as a kid. I had a balanced coordination issues. Wow. Always pick last in sports because of it. Took me three years longer to learn how to read. That was a challenge. I mean, it

7:31really affected you as you can imagine as a five, six, seven year old in my self-esteem. You see other kids be able to do something. You know, pass around that book and read it out loud. It's very embarrassing. So it affected my self-confidence, my self-worth. When I was nine years old, I was slowing down the class and a teacher came to my defense because I was being teased. I always called slow. My last name really was quick. He said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. That label became my limit. Even though it only took her five seconds to say that sentence, and I'm sure it's good intentions, I had that conversation with myself, that story playing for the next 10 years. And so while the brain injury was one limitation, I think a greater limitation was my story about that injury because I felt like that was who I was. And at such a young age, that's implanted in there, right? That's it. That's what you're thinking. You've said before though, my brain wasn't broken. It just needed a better owner's manual. Did you actually believe that? Did you actually understand what that meant? At the time, I would play with my toys and

8:34always has instructions, which was interesting. Everything that gives you instructions on how to use it, it was interesting that our minds didn't have that. So I didn't know how to fix myself, and there was no internet or anything like that. I think it was a challenge, but my parents really, they worked really hard. And they never felt like I was a lack of a lot of people. We live in the back of a laundry mat. My mom worked at, and my parents worked many jobs. My grandmother raised me when I was a kid. She was my super hero. She started showing early science of dementia when I was five. Also, she passed a bell's home when I was seven. So this was just, you know, a lot of it. Again, kind of put me on a path of curiosity. But I also wanted to make my parents proud of the oldest of three siblings. So I want to do right by them. And, you know, I realize it's not about the resources you have as much as your internal resources, your resourcefulness. But my parents believed

9:36in me. And I feel like I'm on the jackpot there. That's amazing because that love does a lot. It does. Because we're also social creatures. I want to remind people like one of the ways to have a really strong brain is community and deep relationships, you know, on our podcast. We had the director of that long tutors, the long study at TARBARD 80 year study on happiness, longevity. This had died as important, you know, exercise important. But what's more important is the depth of your connections, you know, and because we borrow on people's, you borrow courage based on someone's belief in you, right? So you regulate emotions, your nervous system around people who are really calm, right? And you kind of get in sync. And so, yeah, being a restaurant or the right people, I was very blessed that way. You know, I think about what you've done for so many people, for so many millions of people who have not had that confidence in themselves. And I think you've regulated them and made them feel calm like they can, they can move forward and learn. And it's not impossible. And I,

10:39I think that I learned that in your first book. And certainly in this book, you know, my midlife, a lot of us have spent time feeling becoming very competent in whatever it is. And now we hit midlife 50s and we say, hey, I want to do something a little bit different. I'm maybe not as good as these other things that I, you know, I was before. Or maybe there's something new I want to learn. Are our brains comfortable with being uncomfortable or discomfort? I think uncertainty, you know, change can be scary and growth can be hard. I also know that nothing is as scary and hard as being stuck somewhere that you don't belong in. I feel like, somebody was telling me about menopause is they were using a metaphor of like climbing a mountain. And I, and while that could be parts of it accurate, I feel like it's almost working with a lot of clients and that would identify with this, like kind of walking,

11:40climbing up to a ridge where it's, you know, you can honor the strength and the sacrifice that took you to get there. But I also feel like from there, it helps you to be able to see a new point of view. The air is cleaner there. You can look back and see how far you've come. And you could also choose a new path. And so I don't see midlife, you know, my 50s as well. I don't see it midlife as an ending as much as a beginning of fulfilling the promise and the preparation you're younger self put in. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like the beginning of that stage that the younger version of you prepared you for this, this moment. When you talk about menopause, there's all these years that are kind of this uncertain part, right? Before to 10 years where you're experienced hot flashes and the drops in your hormones and the brain fog. And I think at of everything, if I look back, the brain fog was the scariest part for me. I was on television at that time. I would look at a

12:41word and I couldn't, it wouldn't come out of my mouth. And even to this day, I always have notes with me, which I never had before because of what that did to a lack of confidence. My memory is different. It's, you know, it's back to where it was. But it can be really scary for somebody. If there's a moment that's listening right now, it's like, I get it. Brain fog is scary. I never had it before. It caused me a severe lack of confidence. So I don't even think I could do anything I want to do if I want to learn a new language, learn a new instrument to these other, I just want to get through the day. Do you have some advice for that person that's feeling like they're in the middle right now and not yet gone over to that next horizon to see what's ahead? I would say my message is that of hope. We do have memory students in every country in the world. We get a lot of feedback. We can get older, but in a lot of ways, we can get wiser. I think it's very important to know that we're not alone. I think it's very important that we're kind to ourselves. I think self-compassion goes a long way in this process. Studies on self-compassion say that if you beat yourself up over something, you're less likely to be able to follow through,

13:46as opposed to when you're kind to yourself. Knowing that we had a hard day, we have a lot of things on our mind, a lot of things going on internally and externally. So I feel like part of it is looking at the mirror and seeing the reflection back and loving that reflection who's been through so much and still standing. So my message would be of hope. And I also know that there are absolutely things that people could do to, I mean, because it could be a confluence of things, hormonal, certainly. Some people could also have thyroid challenges or sleep apnea. It's not a magic pill, but there's a magic process. And I would go back to the basics. It would be loving yourself because self-care is not selfish. It would be things like pause. I think that, and slow down, I think it's very needed today, especially in the world that's racing. When you pause a camera or a television or a computer, it stops working. You pause machine stops working. When women and men pause ourselves at humans, we tend to work in different ways. We start to recover. We start to rethink. We start to recalibrate. We start to restore.

14:51Maybe look at things through a new lens also as well. So I think that pause and that grace is important. And then the basics, I always tell people medsRx is meditation, which is that pause. It's a must for me. I think it's important to disconnect, to reconnect. My meditation really is nature. E is exercise, which is so scary. And in your audience is probably forgotten more about this than most of their friends and family will ever learn. But just a reminder to move throughout the day. And I think that's important because sometimes we get stuck with words or thoughts because we're not also moving our body. And I feel like when we move our body, then our thinking moves also. It's more viable. And also the BDNAF, the brain-to-round neurotropic factors, your diet, which we know could affect our memory and certain things where we feel slow or stuck. So we talk about neuronetrition. And then the S is sleep. Sleep is for real. How's your sleep in general? I know especially with travel and the projects that you take on.

15:53It's okay. I think it's good. And then I'm like, I'm so confident I can sleep. It's fine. I'm good. And then I have too much caffeine and it's shot again. So I'm trying to focus on that a little bit more. And because I think about, sleep is never a thing I talked about. It's never think I even thought about until I hit menopause and I couldn't sleep anymore. And I was out in the couch every night with two to three hours of sleep to just get through. That's scary as you, right? It does because it also wears on us. Like Amy first especially for mental health. So sleep prioritizing our sleep because our brains, that's where you can solidize short to long-term memory. It's the lymphatic system. Click. Think he's in. It's like your sewage system. Clean out those proteins that can lead to brain aging challenges. And then the R and the X is relationships. And then the X are the extras. Like all the biohacking stuff and the neurofeedback, hyperbaric chambers or the red lights. The things that matter though are at least some of them to some people. I mean everything I think affects somebody differently, right? Like I don't know if I'm going to do a cold plunge anytime soon, but I definitely know I'm going to be trying to sleep

16:53and I'm big with red light. Yeah. So I just I pick and choose. I want to ask you something. I don't know if you remember this, but you taught me, I don't know, it's probably like five or six years ago now when I had that panic attack on television. You taught me a grounding exercise to be able to focus. You mentioned focus a little while ago. And I want to talk about that because I never forgot what you told me to do. There were three things to pay attention to if I needed to ground myself or focus myself. Can you walk us through that? Yeah, I think it's important because sometimes where we were we're having anxiety about the future or kind of stress about the past being present, which is the time that we have and we people know that. But really getting into our our bodies and part of that is our senses. So what I what I do now is I if I want to get present if my thoughts are racing or wherever I'll think about like I'll look at five things that I see like I'll see I'll see the camera and I'll see the lights and I'll see you I'll name five things that I see in the present. And then I'll name like four things that I maybe I maybe hear also as well.

17:57You know, whether it's they are coming through or it's my own voice or the home of the lights or something like that. And then the third thing I'll do is like what do I feel? Like maybe it's a ground on my foot, you know, sitting in this chair, the light breeze and people want to go deeper if there's a couple things they could smell or one thing they could taste. It's kind of five or three two one. And it's an exercise that can only take, you know, 15 seconds or something. But I find that even the same those things brought me here, you know, and so yeah, I think I think it's very that that pause with ourself and getting back in our body. This is so very important because sometimes we're disconnected. Yep. Right. I couldn't agree more and I feel like now more than ever before. You you talked about the tabs and I could feel my heart racing like opening up tabs on a computer. I feel that I know exactly what that is where I go from thing to thing to thing and don't know where where I've been or where I'm going. You know, fall in New York is my favorite time of year. I love the Chris mornings and that first excuse to just lay her up a little bit and walking around the city

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21:08really have a lot of hope for people, especially as they're kind of coming over that horizon and looking at the next 30 to 40 years. I mean, we have a lot of time left. God willing. When you talk about that, do you think it's possible for people to learn a new language, learn a new instrument, learn a entirely new career? When we say the word reinvention a lot, but people don't realize there's a lot that goes with it. Do you have a belief that people can do that? And if they can, how do you start doing that? Because it'll have school like we used to. I'd be honest, I believe it's a conviction. Nobody could tell me otherwise. I work with so many people in their 70s and 80s that are starting a business that are starting a book. They age 75 are starting new hobbies. I think there's this study done with these non-zero living 80, 90, and above. And they wanted to find out what was the cater alone, Jevety, and their mental locuity, and they found out half of it was their faith, their community. But the other half, they were lifelong learners. And they were always learning. They're reading, they're writing, they're having debates and conversation and discourse. And because of it, at years, their life and life, two years, so on the cover of Time Magazine called Aiding with Grace,

22:12your brain is pliable with neuroplasticity to the day we expire. It's, but it requires just like building a muscle. It requires novelty and nutrition. We can absolutely do it. It might be a coming out in a different form, but I also think it keeps us alive. Whether it happens to be a dance, whether it's happens to be a musical instrument, a new hobby, I feel like passion is what lights you up and having those things. Sometimes we feel like we're slowing down or burnt out because we're doing too much. I think also we feel burnt out sometimes because we're doing too little other things that make us come alive. So God bless people at any age or stage that's willing to take on new new hobbies, new interests. I feel like the science is showing that it'll keep you young. And the things that are interesting that move the need are things like racket sports, because the reaction time that the sprinting, pickleball ever wrack, pickleball, yeah, although that ping pong, all the racket sports, suppose that nine years to your life, but it's also great cognitive exercise.

23:15There's strategy, there's memory, dance is so amazing. Ballroom dance, Latin dance, amazing, because putting your mind into your muscles. And that's a key to cognitive reserve. So if you could take two women who are maybe they're in their let's say 70s, right? And maybe they have very close brain types on scans and many similar genetics found in the category. But one of them is fully independent. And the other one is relies on assistance, shows cognitive decline, and these kind of challenges. And so scientists want to figure out like what's the difference. And their hypothesis is something called cognitive reserve. And cognitive reserve, you know, some of your listeners know it's kind of like a retirement account that we're depositing every single day or withdraw or withdrawing from. And so what makes those deposits to have a reserve

24:16for when we're older, like a retirement, cognitive retirement account are things that are mental, certainly. So mental activity, physical activity, and social activity. Those are the things that are going to add to your cognitive reserve. And it's interesting when we talk about racket sports or dance, that's used the social also. So it's all three, it's physical, it's mental, and it's social. And so yes, I would say anybody who wants to, you know, I think it's important to have it to do this. And but also to learn list. Like what do you want to learn that's new? When have anyone to challenge yourself and kind of see where your passion, you know, where you feel drawn to and what I like to. It's funny. My dad's 86 and he took a pottery about nine months ago. And his work is now being shown in Tampa Museum of Art. 86. Yeah, he's really great at it. He was an architect. And so, you know, he's got the artistic gene already. But it's really been fascinating for me to see him thrive at that age when he could just be sitting there watching Netflix. So, you know, if he really wanted to, he's put in his time and done a lot of different

25:18things. So that's really inspirational for me to see. The mental activity is very important. Sometimes we'll see big cognitive decline when people retire. Because often when people retire, they they stop using their minds. And so, you know, that's it's one of the things to keep active. You always want to be learning. It's not based on we also see that when people graduate school, sometimes they feel like education and learning, their learning is done when their education, formal education is done, you know, and that would be a challenge. But I feel like life is a classroom and we could always add to the curriculum. So, you know, a lot of people, if notice reading has gotten kind of popular again, I don't know. I feel like it went away for a while and it's come back. I do notice nowadays I read a book and a week later I couldn't even tell you what it was about. Can we talk about that? Because speed reading was when I first met you initially when I met you and what you were really talking about and helping teach a lot of big celebrities and actors and memorization. Can we talk about how to have that work in real life? We're not memorizing lines,

26:19but we want to read and we want to recall. I think you have to read to succeed. It's reading is your mind would exercise your body. So, it's great to enhance your focus. I'm very particular on reading like physical books. I do read Don Springs because I don't want to carry like seven books with me on a trip. And I do listen to audiobooks also as well. But there's something about holding a fresh book. That's very, it's amazing. So, it also helps. I just want to encourage people to read more fiction. Really? Why more fiction? It's been shown to enhance emotional culture. You need a right fiction. I have some children's books I really want to put out. But I would say that it helps with your emotional quotient. Empathy, storytelling, narratives, points of view in your imagination, your problem solving also as well. I tend to read fiction before I go to sleep. Because I don't want to read like a business book or a neuroscience book before I go to sleep. So, I don't get into my more awake and think and ruminate. But it's been shown even just a little

27:24bit of reading a night could reduce your stress levels. It's like over 60% reading fiction, which would support better sleep also as well. So, I like that. I tend to read also more non-fiction. And you want to remember what you read certainly. It is concerning. While I think there is a rise of their of a reader, it's the baseline is still pretty low. Elana came out with an unaccurate thesis, but they said 16% of people read every day. Not social media or emails, but like a book or magazine. Only 51% of individuals don't read one book a year. So, and there's difference based on this. This happened to be in the Atlantic saying it was independent of gender age and ethnicity. But I would always encourage more people to we could always do more reading. Even people reading 30 minutes a day, it sounds like a lot, but it's 2% of our day, which I feel like there's a huge benefit. Especially like yourself, you have,

28:25if you have decades of experience, you put into a book and somebody could read that book in a few days and download decades and days, a huge advantage. So, if anyone's ever read a page and a book got to end and forgot what they just read, that could be a challenge. So, a couple things. I would say a lot of people are remembering things or understanding because they don't have questions. So, that's what I remind everyone that questions are the answer. It's kind of like the standardized test preps. You can read pages of reading comprehension, all these paragraphs, and then they ask you 10 questions. And then you're like, oh, that's what they wanted to know as opposed to going to the questions first. And then when you're reading, you're like, oh, there's the answer, there's the answer, there's the answer. I feel like some people are passive readers and they don't, they're not having a conversation with the author, right? They're not asking questions because if you ask questions like, how can I use this? When will I use this? Why must I use this? How does this relate to what I already know? Is this true? Then we'd be more engaged, right? We're not going to forget as much because it's learning is not a spectator's board and neither is reading. Even if it's fiction, what happens next? Where is it? Yeah, absolutely. The who, the what, the where, the when, even the

29:29context. Like some people, like if I ask that question, they don't know, but then they'll start looking for clues of what time period it is, right? Or where it is in the world. And so the questions activate part of your brain call, your reticular activating system, your RIS. So your brain primarily is a deletion device because we let everything in. We would be overwhelmed. What you decide to shine a spotlight on is really directed by your questions. And so, you know, the example I use is I'm a younger sister years and years ago, she was sent me postcards and email a very specific breed of dog. It was a pub dog. And I would get these daily. And then my question was like, why did she keep on sending me these dog pictures? And then funny, and I realized her birthday was coming up. She's a great marketer and she's seeding her birthday gift. But I started, I started seeing these dogs everywhere. Like I'd be at the supermarket and someone in front of me was holding like a pub dog check check out or I'm in my neighborhood jogging and someone was walking six pub dogs. And my question for everyone listening is do those pub dog just teleport into my neighborhood? No, they were always there, but I was deleting it because it was important. But then I started asking

30:32questions. I started seeing them everywhere. Same thing is if you have more questions when you read, then you're like, oh, there's a pub dog. There's a pub dog. There's a pub dog. There's an answer, answer, answer. And so asking more questions will give you better answers. And I think also, even in life, I think we're optimizing a lot for the wrong questions. You know, even when we prompt AI, you would never go in there and say, oh, why can I, you know, you know, lose this weight or why can't I ever find it? They don't give you all the evidence, right? Probably not the most powerful prompts, but we've been asking our own human intelligences, prompts all the time also. So, you know, asking better questions will lead to better answers, ask questions. No one's ever asked before, you'll get answers, you know, you haven't gotten before also. But I think that's important. And I was also to say, just a lot of people don't read very well because they don't have a focal point. Sometimes they'll backskip, they'll reread words, read whole lines and just having a visual pacer, a pen, a highlighter, yes, not where you're underlining it, but just helping you keep your focus, could push your reading speed 25 to 50%. They call it a visual pacer because your eyes are attracted to motion. So even if you just went margin to margin, underline, don't you don't want to

31:37touch the screen or the page, just underline it. Your eyes are attracted to the motion. So you're being pulled through it as opposed to backskip and it regressing. Is that how to speed read a little bit? We, we graduate people reading three times faster with our online programs and with better comprehension, I don't even consider that speed reading. I think that's normal reading. We just weren't taught how to, I mean, the last time we took a reading class, we were probably six or seven years old. And so that I feel like is snaling. It's just that feels like you're going, you know, you know, going through it, you're falling asleep, you lose your mind wanders. And if you don't go be a brain that's stimulus and needs, it'll seek entertainment elsewhere in the form of distraction. So some people are re-sulturing. So painfully, like if I went one word at a time, everyone would just tune out. They would, they remind me think about something else. They would fall asleep and that's what happens when people read because they're reading so slow. Now, if you're reading a little bit faster with more of a tempo, it's like driving faster. If you're going slow, you could be texting or makeup or having a coffee conversation, whatever, five different things. But if you're going

32:40fast, you have to focus on what's in front of you and the active driving. And that's like reading, right? If people are so painfully slow, it's like writing a bicycle, so low, yes, you're just wobble and fall. So I want to break the myth that if you had to read faster, you would understand less. A lot of times you don't understand more because you have better focus. That makes so much sense. Yeah. But the other thing with reading though, this is what I'm doing with Limilist Daily, the new book is because I had such a problem reading, they're, they're, I would make notes in the margins. I don't know if you ever did that like that back in school. I still do. Yeah. And this is called Marginelia. It's actually an art that's been used for hundreds of years and people, even in libraries, they would pick up and and comment on what other people wrote, right? Before they return, so there would be this whole discourse. What's it called again? I think it's Marginelia. Marginelia. Something about it, I think the pronunciation is right. But it's putting like, like I would when I was first teaching myself how to read better, would read a paragraph and I would write like a one sentence summary of that paragraph. And that forced me to be, to be active, it forced me to pay

33:40attention to see what I knew and what I didn't know. And then it's great because I don't have to reread things. I could just read the summary, you know, sentence each time. And with daily book, it's kind of even more powerful for me because there's a date for everyone on the same page around the world. But you put your notes there based on that day's lesson and you come back a year from now and you're still reading it and you see the book is exactly the same, but we're different. Right. So we see things that maybe we need to hear or we miss the first time or where we are in life. This is so perfect for it because I told you what I thought. I think this is going to be a book that people have for 20 years. Oh yeah. That they're going to come back to and back to and back to. I want to get into the book. I want to ask you one question because you brought up AI. What do you think that AI is doing to our brains right now? Yes, it enables us to ask questions, but is it making us think less actively think less or we have to just use it differently? I think there are better ways of using AI for sure. I imagine a lot of your listeners are using AI for something. Right. Technology for me, I'm very optimistic. I'm very pro technology.

34:44For me, it's not good or bad. It's just how it's used like fires or probably the release form of technology. You could cook your food or you could burn down your home. It's just how it's used. AI, what I'm concerned about is just like we talked about in the limitless in 2020 digital dementia where we can't remember phone numbers or to-dos or calendars because it technology does it for us. I also wrote about digital deduction, which is the term I coined around the high reliance of technology. Use a calculator to do math when we could do it in certain destinations or head. Or we use a GPS as well as when and where to turn. So we don't have to develop our visual spatial intelligence. AI is challenging because a lot of people are going there to think for themselves like for them, it's going to AI to decide for them to solve their problems. And the challenge is just like with a muscle requires it requires effort. But what happens when AI removes the friction from that? What happens to those mental muscles? Right. You won't go to the gym and ask your friends to lift the weights for you. You would get no benefit from that. But it's kind of like what AI is doing for us. So where the industrial revolution changed the physical aspects of

35:49labor, we didn't have to be so so as much physical because machines are doing it in the information age. Right. It's kind of this AI AI age. It's kind of doing the thinking for us. And that's a challenge. And I just want to remind everyone that AI could scale and amplify it, but it only can scale and amplify what humans bring to it. Right. If somebody's confused or incapable, it'll it'll it'll magnify chaos. Right. It meant and it'll make you feel good about it like you're so smart. Even if you're not that smart. But if somebody is very clear and competent, it'll magnify that. And so what I'm concerned about is this term called cognitive offloading. Cognitive offloading, we do cognitive offloading by putting things in our calendar. Right. Lower, lower mental tasks. Now I use AI to automate things because I don't want to be focused on certain things like my inbox. But cognitive surrendering is what a lot of people are doing now where there's surrendering. And so we don't get that those mental muscles developed. Where do you draw the line in day to day basis because I'll go to it and ask a question, get a quick answer and it's good. Hey, can you write

36:50this XYZ email? Do you think that that's too much or too little? Yeah. And so it's a balance just like the metaphor would be, well, where do we draw a line physically? Right. If we're on the fifth floor here for the studio, the elevator is a former technology. We can take the out. It's very convenient technology. But then we don't take the stairs. Right. And we don't want to lose all physical capacity and we don't want to lose all mental capacity either. If you have to go, you have to go 10 blocks from here for my next meeting. I could jump into a cab or lift in that technology, but then I don't get my steps in. So it's it's you want it to be convenience. The challenge I feel is the world is often optimized for comfort. Right. Temperature control, lighting, door dash. I mean, we could literally not leave or do I see another human being. The challenge is is we all aspects of our character, of our biology, of our strength, of our bones, bones, you know, get stronger through load. Right. You know, muscles go stronger through resistance. Same thing with cognitive load. And so what I would say is what I my rule is you build your own

37:57intelligence before you borrow. So it's an acronym for me. And I don't I don't teach this in a course or anything. But this is how I use it before I go to AI for a situation. And then we're sorry everyone could kind of do a thought experiment. Think about it next time you go to AI before you do the B and build brainstorm like brainstorm the situation yourself before you go to AI to give it to you. The the you and build sense for understand really understand the problem the prompt itself because most people are using subpar prompts and getting subpar answers because of it. And most people are trying to solve for a problem that is not really the problem. Like they say Einstein, he's a credit, he's he's attributed the if you had an hour to solve a problem, he was spent 55 minutes really understanding what the problem is. Right. So really do your thoughts clarify the problem. The I is imagine three solutions. So before I go to AI, I will imagine my three solutions for this problem. Right. This clarified problem. Or I'll ask a question like what would a five year old, how would a five year old look at this problem. So I'll get a lose or how it's in how it how it attempts to look at this problem. Right. Or one of one of one of your guests on your show or how

39:00with this expert or how would somebody twice as smart as me look at this problem. Right. And I'll come up three answers. And then the Alan build is leverage AI. Then I'll go to AI after I've done I've done some building myself. Sure. Build my intelligence for a borrow from technology. And what do I do? I don't just put in that question. What I'm looking for is pressure test my my theory here is my assumptions. Right. Show China light on my on my blind spots. Right. Spotlight my my cognitive biases. Right. Pretend you're the world's expert on the exact opposite of what I'm talking about. Debate me on this. Right. And so I would use it more as a coach to be able to point out to make me better. Like it's like not artificial intelligence or augmenting intelligence like a creative partner to make it better. Because I feel like that would be great use of of it. Because I feel like sometimes AI will just can make the not so smart person feel really, really smart because it placates. It's like a sickle fan. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me what to do. Exactly. Oh, thanks for

40:03such a great question. Right. And if you don't push back. You know, I can't believe you thought that. I'm like, thank you. What a great idea this business is. And but they never like and then finally the D and build, you know, once once you once you brainstormed, you know, you did understand the problem. You imagine three solutions, you leverage AI, then the D is then you'd get decide what to do with that information. Because I don't mind everyone AI could compute and process and immense amount of data faster than any human. But ultimately humans have to decide what's important. What is this information? And what are we going to do about it? And AI doesn't have stakes. It doesn't have consequence because I can recommend whatever it is. And but humans have to take responsibility for those actions as opposed to AI, which which has no stakes and end in anything. It leaves a right on the screen. And then you're dealing with the rest of it. Right. Completely. Whether it's misinformation or anything else. Yeah. Okay. Let's be honest. I've used more skincare over the years. And I can count in so much of it

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42:08Mike's hot, guest staring at me, coffee everywhere, and I didn't even panic because it's a tumble rug. The coffee beat it up right on the top of the surface. I wiped it away and we went on rolling. And that's what I love about tumble. Spilt proof, fully machine washable, even the big sizes, and they actually look like designer rugs, not something you're just settling for. And when you need a deeper clean, tumble rugs are fully machine washable, even the larger sizes. Seriously, if you have pets, also, these rugs will absolutely change your life. Don't take my word for it though. Hundreds of thousands of homes have already switched to tumble rugs. Machine washable rugs made better. For a limited time only, our listeners get 10% off, plus free shipping at tumbleliving.com slash tamson. That's T-U-M-B-L-E living.com forward slash tamson. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. So I want to talk about your book, Limitless Daily. It gives people one short practice a day. 366 days.

43:10Perly, perly, I don't give anyone excuse to missing a day. Perly fear. Yeah. I was like, why 366? And then I went, oh, leap year. He was already thinking ahead. Well, first of all, I want to ask you, why why did you decide to do it like this? Because Limitless, the first book that came out in 2020, I remember that. And I have all the, I marginalized that or where do you call it? Marginially. Marginially. Yeah. Marginially. That book all over the place. But this is great because it has a short practices. And I think that it makes it feel doable and not overwhelming. And then you remember what you're doing every day. So you have one thing to focus on instead of a two-dualist of 50 things that you're never going to get to. Yeah. So many people after Limitless came out, we're asking for another book. And I honestly didn't think people knew another book that they read for a few days and put on their shelf. And it becomes shelf-help instead of self-help. What people really need is a daily practice. And to be able to make see the results. So I took a lot of the core concepts and Limitless and put them into bite-size little lessons that you start your morning with. And the morning

44:12is very important. I mean, obviously, you could read it throughout the day. But it's just one page to be able to win that day. And it's, there's so in the morning and people could use this whether they get the book or not. When you wake up, there's something called sleep inertia. You're transitioning from sleep state to waking state. It's kind of like you turn your computer on and it's rebooting. But then there's no tabs open. And it's sure there's crystal clear. Nobody else has opened up the tabs for you or sent you all kinds of messages that you have to respond to. It's like clear winter like snow, right? Anything is possible. That time is very prime for attentional priming and attentional priming is showing that during this window. And that sleep inertia is about 15 to 45 minutes. All right, depending on what stage of sleep you woke up in, your seagulling rhythm, your mental input during that window could have a disproportionate effect on the rest of your day. So this is high leverage. Specifically, I want you to focus on what how you feel and how you frame things in the day, which is everything. And what are most people put in that window? They grab their device. So what are they magnifying and multiplying, distraction, comparison, conflict, nobody would invite 200 strangers into their bedroom and talk

45:17about whatever they want to talk about for a second morning. But it's kind of like what we're doing. Right. And so we're magnifying that and we wonder why the day gets outside of us. Right. And we can't catch up or keep up and get ahead. And good use of that time could be things like prayer or gratitude. Like if you want to be a gratitude exercise during that window, I guarantee you that I'll focus and feel more blessings throughout the day. Is that writing it down? Is that thinking about it? Is it just yeah, it's the mental input. Certainly you could you could put into a journal, which is a more hardwire for sure. But it's what it's doing. It's called attentional and emotional priming. That first part of the day, it's like if you ate during that window like a bunch of muffins or I don't know what people like, like just food. Yeah. Like foods like to to and but it affect those things. It affect your focus. Yeah. You know, rebuttal sugar, right? It affect how you feel and it probably affect how you frame and react to the day also as well. But you know, we're putting the other empty calories from like I feel like we're it's kind of like overfed and under

46:17nourished digitally because there are a lot of empty calories that are out there depending on what what we're engaging with. And so I always say mine before media. And this is so important. Before you grab your phone, like takes the take some of that time, that window to direct your mind, right? Before the world does for you or you set your intention before interruption, right? Set your direction of the day before all the distractions that come your way. So I ask people to read the limitless daily during that window because they intentionally and emotionally prime them to focus on the things that they need to focus on. Well, I love it because you know, I tab some of the some of the different parts of it, but attention is currency. Train your focus like a muscle, which we talked about already today. The one that I tab was act how you want to be. Yeah, which I thought was really, you know, it was really great. And it's things we just don't think about doing. But every day gives you a different one of those daily lessons. If there is somebody that is really trying to deal with the cognitive overload, are there three simple things that they could do or put into play right now to help with memory and

47:20focus? Yeah, the cognitive overload is real. You know, I always say that, you know, if your mind feels empty, which stops so overload, then read it. But if your mind feels full, then write. And I think it's very important. So having a writing like I write every morning and I have that's been part of my process of healing, bouncing back from my traumatic brain injury as I write every morning, it's a feel I'm most creative in the morning. And so and it's interesting when I have a three and a half year old son and a one and a half year old daughter. When my daughter was born, she came early and you know, it was a little bit jarring. But after I held her for the first time in the hospital and handed back to her mom to my wife, you know, watching her and my two year old son at the time in that hospital bed that morning, I I wrote instead of writing my gratitude and what I want to compensate that I started writing to them. That if God forbid, 20 years from now, I'm not there. What would they need to hear from their parent to help them get through a hard day?

48:22And I started writing about these topics. And the next morning instead of writing, but I'd usually done for years, I started right continuing that another letter. And it was about things like fear of failure, things like if you feel burnt out, if you feel like you're not enough, if you're not believing yourself, negative self-talk, you know, looking bad, imposter syndrome. I mean, this went on and on. And so limitless actually wrote in 2020 and six weeks because I had eight hours a day of just a comment on it again on my head. This took me the full year. And then I had some friends read it and it helped them because it wasn't going to be a book. And then I had a friend going through stage four cancer and a lot of that healing is my mindset, you know, giving, having hope and help. And it just made a big difference. And so then I went back and said, this is the book and I put the science, where, you know, daily devotionals could pull on, you know, Christianity or Buddhism or Judaism or Stoicism, but this pulls from science to the mind, which is psychology and science of the brain, which is neuroscience. And it does all the things, gives them one idea of story and science

49:26behind it, one implementation that they can do in two minutes, no excuses, and then a new identity statement because I feel like at the end of a year, I think people overestimate what they do in a day, but they underestimate what could happen in a year, right? And so I feel like there's a version of everyone that's patiently waiting a year from now. And the goal is we show up every single morning for five minutes and so we're introduced. I would love to hear people's stories after one year of doing this from me. I hope that they come in and tell you because I think that's going to be really, really special. And the book is purple. It's like the purple book. I know, I love it. Yeah, purple, by the way, is like the rare is the 30,000 years was the rarest color because the hardest to create really like they have to go into Mediterranean and extract it from these snail shells. And that's why royalty would wear a lot of purple because that was very rare. And I feel like your listeners who read this book, they're rare because the intentionality in your life is very rare. Yeah, right. Going on this path and owning it is going through tough times, like going through storms, we know with your head up and you mean yourself grace is rare nowadays.

50:32And so, you know, also purple, color psychology means, uh, sovereignty and wisdom. And I just want to remind the readers, which are mostly women, is to the sovereignty they have, you know, the, you know, in the world and the wisdom that they carry. So I like the color purple. But it's not meant to be on your shelf. It's meant to be on your nightstand. Well, that's where it's going to stay. That's where it's going to stay. I'll take a picture of it tonight. For the person that wants to really implement what we've talked about today, is there one practice that you think is just so important? Would that be writing? Would that be reading? Would it be movement? I know it's hard to pick. Is there one that you say, listen, regardless of what a day brings on my, you know, my book launch today, this is your pub day. Is there something though that you refuse to leave behind? I really think self-care. I don't know something more than that, only because it's been my experience with family members and who also listen to your show because I've referred to show in your book

51:34that is so many families, people I care most deeply for, um, that they're out there and they're taking care of so many people, you know, in, in maybe their careers and they're, they're, the person people go to in their friend's circle and their family and they're, and they're holding a lot. And while not all of it is ours, you know, maybe there's to carry, they still carry it and they carry it with grace. I always want to remind people that, you know, those, these individuals that are listening to this, that, you know, that you can only care for people as much as you can care for yourself, you know, and then it's really hard when, if you murder yourself and you totally deplete yourself at the expense of, you know, then can't be there for other people. So having it some kind of self-care practice, like I'm really into daily routines and daily practices, because ultimately that's what life doesn't change through the occasional burst of energy and effort. Like you can't floss for three hours and you're good for the year. It just doesn't happen that way. You don't work out all day, Saturday, and then you're fit for the rest of your life. You know, you don't have one great conversation with a stranger and you have this epic romantic relationship,

52:36right? It's what you do every single day. So I would say that having non-negotiable routine for self-care and it can be so simple, it can be just walking in nature for five minutes, you know, or it can be just like taking 10 minutes to do some breath work or whatever happens to be. I feel like that anything can be built on top of that, right? I love the make it sound so simple though, because sometimes when we hear, but when we hear self-care, we think, oh my gosh, I got a list. And you're saying five minutes in nature? I can handle that. I'm saying something small that you can commit to that is a non-negotiable, where it's also evidence that you are this person that cares for themselves. You're doing something even though having that or how small or inexpensive or not even that time consuming that you matter. And I don't know what's more important. Like I think if there's a meta-belief habit to get into, it's doing what we say we're going to do is building self-trust, like showing up for ourselves even when it's difficult, right? But then also if you don't follow through and work out or do the thing you say you're going to do, having, having grace and kindness, you know, and giving yourself love in those moments also.

53:41But is this negative self-talk that like we would never stand for somebody sometimes the way we talked to ourselves if somebody was talking to someone we cared about that way? We would never. We would defend that person a lot. We'd shut it out. But it's interesting how we do that. So taking the critic inside your mind and changing the tone or the words to be that more of a coach, like a coach is definitely a critic, right? You know, there's this, it's been run free in my mind for decades that theater Roosevelt quote about the person and the arena and not listening from the critics and the cheap seats, you know, it's the person that's doing the work. But I also feel that first of all not to take criticism for people that you wouldn't take advice from that's kind of my mantra there. But when it comes to like that little, those that is showing up for yourself and doing what you say you're going to do because you create evidence that you are, who you say you are, because if you're in a relationship and the person is constantly saying they're going to do something and they don't, there's a breach in trust. But think about the conversation you have with yourself, which is the longest conversation we're ever going to have, when we don't follow through in the things that we say to ourselves, I feel that lack of trust,

54:43could ripple, you know, in a way, and how do you hurt that trust back? You show up for yourself a little bit each day. So it does not have to be grandiose or expensive or even energy consuming. It could be something just small, you know, that you do for yourself. It could be just having your coffee out, you know, outside just listening to some music for five minutes and or could be my preference because you got people who you like. Your preference is limitless daily.com. Where can people find you Jim? Yeah, not hard to find anywhere. We have a couple of million use-toup subscribers. We have a podcast, we've had Tamsin on and we, you know, it's only 20 minutes show at Jim Quick everywhere. And the book you'll be found at limitlessdaily.com. It is the purple book. I love it. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Good to see you always. Appreciate you.

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