Transcript of Jim Kwik: How to Protect Your Brain Health, Memory, and Focus in the Age of AI | Mental Health | E414

Most people do first thing when they wake up, they grab their device.

Yep.

Right? You wiring your brain for distraction, and then you wonder why you can't focus later that day. If you're spending 8 hours doom scrolling and rotting your brain and then have the audacity to complain, you can't be upset by the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do.

Jim Kwik is the world's number one brain coach, a bestselling author. Today he's breaking down how to protect your focus, remember what matters, and why your human intelligence is the one thing AI can never replace.

So the idea here is your brain's like a muscle. It's an organ, but it acts like a muscle. You use it or lose it. But if you put your arm in a cast for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger. It wouldn't even stay the same.

Yeah.

It would weaken, it'd atrophy. That's digital dementia and digital deduction.

I'd love to hear your opinion on collaborating with AI and how to make sure we're not outsourcing too much with AI.

In a world of artificial intelligence, you don't want human intelligence to become artificial and not valuable. AI is, is a tool that can magnify or multiply, but it only magnifies, multiplies, and amplifies what we—

How can we retain our focus in this era of just so much distraction?

I think where we can lean into a number of things.

Jim, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

So good to be here.

This is the 3rd time that Jim has been on, and every conversation has been absolutely incredible. You are a brain expert. You are a memory expert.

Hmm.

A learning expert, and I'm just so excited to kind of dig into everything. And something that I'm not gonna do today is be so worried about repeating any sort of information that we've covered in the past, because I was realizing that half the things that we talked about, I didn't even retain. So how could I have expected my listeners to retain? So I wanna start there. Why is it that we can hear things more than once? and still not remember them or recall them?

It's so important for entrepreneurs to have a good memory. I think 2 of the most costly words in business are, I forgot. I mean, just think about the consequence of saying, I forgot to do it, I forgot to bring it, I forgot to go to that meeting, I forgot what I was going to say to this person, I forgot that conversation, what was said to me. You know, I forgot how to do something. I forgot that person's name, you know. And so on the other side, memory is a magnifier. It's a multiplier. It can make you money. When you could easily remember client information, product information, you could do sales videos or pitches, remember sales scripts, give presentations without notes, you know, walk into a room of 20 strangers and leave saying goodbye to all 20 of them. You know, they're all going to remember you. So memory makes things a lot easier and it'll make you money for sure. It was interesting. I was just in Miami speaking at an event doing brain training. We train a lot of Fortune 500 companies, and that commercial real estate guy came to me and he, he's like, Jim, I wish I would have gone through this before.

He said he, he lost a $50 million deal because he called the client the wrong name twice.

Oh my gosh.

Could you imagine?

Yeah.

Because what, you know, what does that make— what's the message we send to somebody, you know, when we, when we have those memory lapses? So, yeah, the idea here is there's a forgetting curve when people hear something once on a podcast, even previous episodes. Within 2 days, when you're exposed to information once from a presentation, a conversation, you read it, you listen to it on a podcast, 80% of it, it's gone unless you are doing something with that information. And I think part of it is just, I would say number one is, you know, part of it is just paying attention.

Yeah.

Sometimes when people are listening to something like this, they're multitasking, like they're cleaning or they're working or they're working out or they're driving and there's a you know, their focus comes and goes. And the focus is— I mean, the art of memory is the art of attention. You could easily remember a name or something that you just read, but it's if our mind is wandering, that's a challenge. Also, we're not taught how to remember things like in school.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I know there are a lot of subjects for entrepreneurship that wasn't taught in school that would have been useful. You know, leadership, investing, negotiation skills, sales skills, you know, the legal parts to a business. But same thing with school teaches you what to learn, what to remember, what to think. But there's zero classes on how to learn.

Mm-hmm.

How to remember, you know, how to think. And I think those are like the lead dominoes right now. They're their highest lever point for— I think the faster you learn, an entrepreneur can learn, the faster they will earn. Knowledge today is not only power, it's, it's profit. And, you know, there's this divide, not those just who have and those who don't have. There's a divide between those who know some things and those who don't know. Even in an age of AI, You know, information is ubiquitous. We all have access to information, right? You know, I know we could talk about AI a little bit later, but it's no longer a competitive advantage because everybody has it.

Yep.

It's what you bring to it, though, that makes the difference. But the reason why it's so important is, um, you can only make— your life is the sum total of all the choices you made up to this point, right? Who to spend time with, you know, what to focus on, what you're going to eat, how you're going to move, what city you're going to live in. And it's interesting, you can only make good choices based on the information you know. And when you know more, you could do more. When you know better, you could also do better also as well.

Yeah.

You know, there's a reason why people have seen pictures of me with Elon or Oprah or these individuals. You know, people ask how we bonded, how we connected. We bonded over books, you know, because even Warren Buffett reads 50, you know, 500 pages a day. So he has more information so he can make better decisions, you know. And so I love it. But yeah, one of the reasons— the reasons not paying attention, the forgetting curve, not having a system to remember things. You know, also as well. And also just asking the question like, how can I use this? You know, I feel like you learn something once.

Yep.

And then if you don't use it, whatever you don't use, you lose, right? It's use it or lose it. So what happens in the brain is you start pruning this information so it's more efficient, right? And so you start pruning or deleting this information. And that's why I'm a big advocate for, you know, application. Like, why learn a new idea if you're not going to implement it?

So if people are listening to this podcast, and let's say there's 2 different people, one person is multitasking, and the other person is actually like, I really want to take advantage of this, and I have like a pen and a paper, or like I've got a computer or whatever it is. How should they actually listen to this podcast episode to retain the most information?

So the person who's multitasking, so they've done, uh, when people, people ask me all the time, you know, as an author, like, what's the best, is it better to read something in a book or to listen to it on audiobook, for example? Um, and people will test better when they read it in terms of comprehension and retention. And part of it is because when usually when we're listening to something, we are multitasking, right? So our focus is separate. So I would say the person who is trying to multitask, and we could talk about the science of multitasking and how it's really task switching and how it's not very effective.

Yeah.

Focus on, if you're driving, focus on driving. Like if you're operating heavy machinery, focus on that, right? There's a priority there. And that person can listen and get a kind of a, just a good review and bits of it and then come back and really study it, you know, when they have a chance. I would highly recommend that for the person who's taking notes. I don't know if they're watching it or listening to it. Everybody has a preferred channel of learning, not so much a learning style, but a channel they prefer to receive information in. And I would say taking notes, if you're going to take notes, you know, you could either do it handwriting notes or digital note-taking. Handwriting will outperform digital note-taking, you know, in terms of retention. Absolutely. And understanding. Digital is great for storing information. It's great for sharing it with your team. But in terms of understanding and retaining the information, handwriting notes will outperform, you know, and everyone has a different process. Some people use it and they'll handwrite on one of their tablets and then use AI to organize it or store it or Notion or summarize it.

One of the really like hidden talents that you have is remembering a lot of names.

Yeah.

And I have a story that, that I remembered when I was studying your stuff, and it's, uh, one of my guy friends. We were trying to set him up with, uh, a girl that we know, and we brought him to like a party. And she's like a gorgeous girl, has lots of options, and he's, he's a great guy. Uh, but he couldn't remember her name. And they kept talking and, and she was like, what was your name? I'll say her name is Anna. It's not Anna. And he'd be like, what's her name? Or like, Anna. And then he would like call her a different name and like couldn't remember her name all night.

Wow.

And then she was like, I don't want to see this guy. Like, sorry, like, I'm not going on a date with him. He couldn't even remember my name. Hmm.

That's like a Seinfeld— there was a Seinfeld episode. This is— I'm dating myself. I'm, I'm gonna be 53. So, um, where Jerry Seinfeld, it was sitcom comedy where he was dating somebody and was intimate with her, but didn't know her name. So every single time she went to the bathroom, he would try to go into her purse to get, you know, look at her driver's license. Every time George or Kramer would come by, he would introduce them hoping that she would say their name. And the joke was, uh, it rhymed with a part of the female anatomy or something like that. But, um, Seinfeld talks about common things. You know, that episode where they lost the, where they parked the car. The whole episode was just trying to find the lock of the car.

We've all been there.

But, um, but yeah, I, I feel bad for your, for your, for your friend. That's embarrassing.

It's embarrassing. And it made her feel like she wasn't important, that he must be like talking to so many girls or that she wasn't a focus.

Or he didn't care.

Or he didn't care.

Yeah.

So I'd love to understand when we remember things, whether it's people's names or their kids' names or a story they told us in the past.

Yeah.

How does that improve our networking and relationship?

I think it's huge because it's, you know, they say success is what you know. So we teach people how to, you know, know that faster, right? And read it faster, learn it faster. It's who you know. So remembering them is very important, but it's also who knows you. And I feel like today, Especially it's helped so many people with their confidence. Like when you know you can walk into a room and retain a lot of the information from conversations and people's names, you walk in different because in psychology they have a confidence-competence loop that the more competent you get, the more confident you are. And I think being confident in your memory and your ability to recall information, especially in this expert economy, you know, where nobody listening to this as an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur is paid you know, for their brute strength, right? It's your brain strength. It's not your muscle power today. It's your mind power. It's not like we're working on fields and, you know, in the agriculture age or industrial age, moving things in factories. It's our ability to come up with new ideas. And, and a lot of creativity comes from memory also, from remembering things, you know, being a generalist, knowing, you know, a good amount about a lot of things, but then connecting those dots, you know, to innovate, you know, like, like a phone, like what Steve Jobs did.

Right.

Right? There's a camera and there's a calculator and there's a, there's a phone and all these other things took, you know, different things, created something brand new. And entrepreneurs, that's what we're doing. We're innovating, you know, all the time. But I would say that remembering names is very important because you need to be able to stand out. And when you have, you have what I call quick recall and you're able to recall information well, people feel like that you were thinking about them, right? That you remember their conversations, that they, that you, that they were important. You know, there's a What's, what's the quote? Um, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Like, how are you gonna show somebody as an entrepreneur you're gonna care for their health, their family, their finances, you know, whatever you have to offer them if you don't care enough just to remember things about them?

Totally.

You know, so, you know, cuz even if you don't remember, like that kind of thing, nothing, you know, past that would count.

And you just lose trust so much. Like, if you don't remember what you were supposed to do for your client or what you talked about on the last call and what you were supposed to implement, like you could lose trust so fast if you can't retain.

Absolutely. And people want to nowadays want to work with the best. And I, and I think, you know, to be able to stand out before you sell anything, you sell yourself, right?

Mm-hmm.

But absolutely, like, if you remember people's conversations and what they said and their preferences and the problems that they're dealing with, the things that they value in life, the things that they're proud of, the things that keep 'em up at night, then they— people feel like you're just thinking about them all the time.

Mm-hmm.

I can't see a situation where that wouldn't be helpful for an entrepreneur. Yep, absolutely.

Okay, I want to do something really fun. So you are incredible at recalling anything— names, words, whatever it is.

Sure.

So I thought it'd be fun to list off 10 random items.

Okay.

And then in, you know, 10 minutes or so, I'm gonna ask you to recall those items.

Yeah. Can people watching or listening try it also?

Yeah.

Yeah? Because in the meanwhile, I'm gonna ask you how we can remember Yeah, it'd be great if people at home could also go through the list and then, you know, take their time and try to remember it. Don't write it down. I would challenge everyone not to write it down. You know, I believe there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory and untrained memory. So, yes, listen to this, memorize it. Let's memorize it all together. Don't write it down. And maybe I could give some tips later on how people could remember that.

Yeah. And then you guys can rewind and go back and see if you can actually remember it. After learning.

Yeah. Oh, we'll go through the list later. That'll be fun.

Okay. 1, pink flamingo.

A pink flamingo.

2, Tesla key.

Tesla key.

3, blueberry muffin.

Blueberry muffin. Oh, you're making me— you're making me— blueberries, by the way, are great brain food.

4, golden microphone.

Golden microphone.

5, broken iPhone.

Broken— a broken iPhone?

Yep.

You came up with these randomly?

Yes.

Okay. I'm giving people a little bit of time to come up with theirs.

6, red high heel.

Red high heel. Just one or two?

Just one.

Okay. Red high heel.

7, brain-shaped balloon.

Brain-shaped balloon? It's literally as random.

8, $100 bill.

$100 bill.

A Benjamin, yes.

Okay.

9, mini treadmill.

A mini treadmill.

Yes, for a mouse.

For a mouse? Okay.

10, diamond notebook.

10 is diamond notebook.

How many do you think you could do?

Well, I've taught people how to memorize, like, pi to, like, thousands of digits, but it's all— it's the same principle that I just— But, um, yeah, so everybody who's listening, just do the best. And notice also, not only just, you know, um, how many you remember when we come back to the list, also think about how you remembered it. Like, what was your strategy, you know, for that?

What is that process? Like, how are you remembering things?

Well, all of— I mean, even in high school, we learned, like, memory is just 3 stages. You encode it, you store it, and then you retrieve it. You know, and if there's a break in any one of those, you're not going to get the remembrance that, you know, that you desire and that you really deserve. You know, I really, you know, for people that are connected to my work, they know that I had a brain injury when I was 5 years old. Because of it, I had learning disabilities. My mother became a special education teacher to help me with my challenges. I had migraines every day. It took me 3 years longer to learn how to read. And so, you know—

They called you the boy with the broken brain. That was—

Yeah, that was my, that was my And that was all through school, through— it was— it wasn't just like elementary school, it was middle school, junior high, high school. I just— I worked hard, you know, I came, you know, from immigrant parents. You know, we lived in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at. You know, we worked hard, but I just didn't get the grades. You know, it's just— it's a challenge. But I realized, you know, after this— my— I've been doing this for 34 years. It's not how smart you are.

Mm-hmm.

It's how are you smart? It's not how smart you are. It's really how are you smart? And we all have different intel— and that intelligence, even in a world of AI, it's not fixed, you know, like your shoe size. It can be trained. But school again teaches you what to learn and what to remember, what to think, but not how to. So, you know, I focus on this thing called meta-learning, which is the science and art of learning how to learn, which I again think it's the best thing that all entrepreneurs could focus on. Because once you can learn how to learn faster, you could read 3 times faster, understand more from it. you know, remember something in a fraction of time that normally takes people, you know, hours, then what can you apply it to? You can apply it towards money, right? You could, you know, that subject or skill, Mandarin, martial arts, music, management, you know, marketing, everything gets so much easier once you can learn how to learn.

Yeah.

It's like the biggest advantage.

So you've got this strategy, I think, related to memory specifically called MOM.

Yes.

Can you tell us about that?

Yeah. So it's also interesting. I wrote Limitless, you know, in like less than 2 months. Um, we donated the proceeds to charity. We built schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya for girls who don't have access— girls and boys who don't have access to education. And then we provided healthcare because a lot of people were sick so they couldn't go to school, and clean water. Also, we donated to Alzheimer's research for women. Women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than men.

Wow.

Twice as likely. I lost my— I lost— when I was going through my challenges when I was 7, because my parents were always working. My grandmother raised me and she passed when I was 7 to Alzheimer's. So in memory of her. But so I bring this up. I mean, everybody has their kind of their origin story, but my struggles became my strength. You know, that adversity can be an advantage, that with challenge comes change. Like, I don't know how one strong person that had an easy life.

Exactly.

You know, and entrepreneurship is not necessarily an easy path. I think it's extremely worthwhile if you do it right. Um, and I'm a big fan of, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I feel like, uh, you know, be able to solve problems, be able to move the economy, be able to create jobs. And yeah, uh, really, really, really, really good things. But when it comes to, to mom, I wrote it in Greece, most of it, that memory is the largest chapter in Limitless. Um, because I found out there was a goddess of memory and she was the mom.

A goddess of memory?

There's a goddess of memory and she's the mother, the mom. Uh, to the, uh, the 9 Muses, uh, of science, literature, and art. So all of science, literature, and art, their mother is, is, is the goddess of memory. So it's so, so fascinating. And then I got curious about, like, what did people, like, I base our strategies based on the latest neuro, you know, like the neuroscience of how people learn and remember. And also I wanted to know, like, historically, what did ancient civilizations do? Like, what did, what did they do in ancient Greece to remember things before there was a printing press? Right? They had to remember things, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah. MOM's very, uh, 3 principles to, uh, quick recall, the M. Well, let's apply that towards names, right? In business. Um, let's say someone listening or watching, they have trouble remembering names. Um, but we had a, like a briefcase here or a suitcase of $1 million cash. And I know you have an international audience, whatever they put, a lot of money tax-free. Um, if you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet, who's going to remember that person's name for $1 million?

Everyone.

Everyone. So as a memory coach, my job is to to call people on their BS, their belief systems, right? It's not true you can't remember a name. It's the first M stands for motivation. Like a lot of people aren't feeling or presencing like how important it is to remember someone's name. So a simple hack is just like, you know, before you meet somebody, you even open up your mouth, you know, you're going to talk to them soon. Just why do I want to remember this person's name?

So it's like, why do I care?

Yeah, it's like, and then come up with a couple of answers. Like maybe it's to show the person respect, maybe it's to make a sale, maybe it's to get a referral. At the very least, maybe it's things that, you know, to practice what they learned on this podcast. Um, you know, without a reason, you won't remember because reasons reap results. And so I just feel like if you don't feel it, you're not going to remember it, you know, because it's not relevant to you.

Yeah.

So that alone I think is very important. Um, the O in MOM is observation. A lot of people aren't forgetting the name. They're just not even listening. You know what I mean? Like at events that you go to, sometimes you're with someone, but you know that they're looking over your shoulder, you know, your shoulder to see who else is in the room. Or maybe we're guilty of talking to somebody, they're talking, but we're thinking about what we're going to say.

Or like, for some reason, self-conscious about like your outfit or something.

Something like that. Yeah, exactly. And so like, and so we're not even present. And so the art of memory is the art of attention. You know, and so I remember years ago I was, I was, I went to a charity event. It was like 2,000 people and I get assigned to a table. So I go to my assigned table. I'm the first one there. And then, you know, a few minutes later, Forest Whitaker, the Oscar-winning actor, sits next to me and then Richard Branson sits down and then Ashton Kutcher and his twin brother, which I didn't realize he had a twin brother. And And then President Clinton sits right next to me. And, uh, I had met him a few years earlier and we had this brief conversation, but he sits down and he remembered my name.

Wow.

And, but then I was like, yeah, I was, I said the same thing. Wow. And then I was like, oh, of course he was told who's sitting, he was sitting with, right? I swear he picks up the conversation that we started 3 years earlier and nobody was privy to that conversation.

Wow.

And I was like, you know, I'm the memory guy. I, I need to know how you're doing this. You know, I think genius leaves clues. When somebody does something magical, there's a method behind the magic. And, uh, and he's telling me this story about, you know, his grandfather in Arkansas in the living room telling stories to the kids. Um, but after he would tell the stories, he would do something very specific and different. He would go to each child and quiz them to see if they were paying, paying attention.

Mm-hmm.

And, and he, it was more than that, but when he explained this to me, I felt this kind of ease and also unease where, have you ever been with somebody and they're like talking, you feel like you're the only person that exists?

Yeah.

They're like, they're so present.

Yep.

And politics aside, you know, most people would say Clinton, you know, strong charisma, great communicator, you know, uh, you know, a, a great, uh, you know, or he's got an incredible memory. And I think this powerful presence that he has with people, his incredible memory, his powerful presence, comes from being powerfully present. And it's not reserved, right, to just an elite few. Anybody could train that. But we have to really just be with somebody, you know?

And that makes you a good leader. Like, it's no wonder people want to follow him because he builds so much trust with the people around him by just recalling information about them.

See, that's huge because it's also like, um, like even if you do this mental experiment and write down Or if you can't write something down in your notes, like picture the word listen in your mind. And if you do the little like brain scramble, like a little brain exercise and move the letters around, it also spells another word perfectly.

Silent.

And I think that's, that's the key. You know, the great, a great book, Dr. Stephen Covey, I mentioned a lot of books, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you know, but one of the, one of the habits is seek first to understand, then to be understood. But in order to understand, we have to be really present, you know, with the person.

I love that.

Yeah.

I love that story about Bill Clinton. Okay, let's go back to that list. Let's see if you remembered that list, 1 through 10.

Yeah. And people could also check themselves also. Um, was it a pink flamingo?

Yep.

And then it was the Tesla key.

Yep.

Uh, blueberry muffin. I call blueberries brain—

This is insane.

I call— I call them brain berries. You know, without a doubt. A golden microphone. Uh-huh.

That's correct.

And then you have your broken iPhone. And you have that big red— what do they call those women's shoe? The high heels?

Yep.

Yeah.

Well, it was one high heel.

Yeah. One. Absolutely.

There's one.

And then there's that big brain balloon. Was that— was that a brain balloon?

Brain-shaped balloon. Very close.

Yeah. And the $100 bill.

Correct.

And then you have that really small little treadmill for the mouse.

Yep.

And then you have your—

Mini treadmill, yeah.

Yeah. And then you have your diamond notebook.

Wow!

Yeah.

Wow!

But this is the thing, and we could have done it for 20, 30, 300 words. Because once you know how to do something, you just do it. It just takes more time, you know, in an episode. You know, just like— if I pass a microphone in an audience and people share their names, memorizing their names, you know, 30, same thing you do for 10 names, you do for 100 names. It just takes more time because everyone has to introduce themselves.

What are you doing? Are you visualizing it? Yeah.

And then like once you understand your memory works, you could, you know, you could even if like, you know, we're here in Austin and I'm here pretty frequent, you know, if we see each other at a restaurant 30 days from now, let's say you could say, Jim used to remember that list and I'll still remember most of that list without even rehearsing it.

Wow.

You know, and then, or I could, or I'll do it backwards and go diamond notebook, mini, mini treadmill, you know, $100 bill, brain-shaped balloon, and, you know, the, the red high heel. That's really big in my, my mind. Um, but once you understand your, your, how, how it works, then you can work them. And this is the kind of stuff, don't you wish this had been so useful back in school?

Yeah.

You know, if you learned it in school, how easy you would remember the periodic table or whatever we had to remember, history or anything. Um, and, you know, but, but imagine applying something that for something that's random and not really that interesting to something that you are interested in that's very relevant to your life. You're gonna remember it even easier because it, you know, has a point.

I remember in 4th grade, a Spanish teacher told us the countries and capitals of Central America and South America. Until this day, I can still say like Caracas, Venezuela, Bogotá, Colombia, Quito, Ecuador. And I could just list 'em all off, but I couldn't tell you the, the capitals of, and states of America.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, cuz I didn't learn it in that way. So what are you exactly doing? Like, what are you doing to, to, to recall that?

And, and I'm, and I'm curious cuz I would love wherever you're consuming this, maybe you could put, post a comment or, or something to see how well people did. Yeah. You know, like if, if people are willing to share, um, I could teach you 20 different ways to memorize that list.

Okay.

You know, and after a while, like, I can remember, I remember names without trying because once you know how to type, you know how to type, right? Once you know how to drive a car, you know how to drive a car. You know, maybe it takes a few weeks or 30 days. Once you know how to tie your shoes, you know how to tie your shoes. Memory is a skill, you know? And so once you know how to do it, you know, you could, you start to, and your confidence goes up and you could just do it more and more and you challenge yourself. But, you know, I could teach 20 different ways of remembering this list. One way, if people wanted to, is make a story out of it, if they wanted to. Right? Right? They could start with the pink flamingo, right? And then all of a sudden, pink flamingo is going into a Tesla car and forgot their key, so they can't be able to get through it. And out of the sunroof comes all these blueberry muffins. Like, imagine putting all these blueberry muffins inside of a Tesla car, a car without a key, right?

That'd be kind of silly.

Mm-hmm.

And then all of a sudden, somebody in the shopping— in the parking lot is— is on a screaming on a, on a, on a golden microphone, right? As, as an, as an example. And then they realize that, you know, saying, where's the key, whatever. And they realize like, here it is, but it's about a broken iPhone, right? And really easy, like right in their back pocket on the thing. And even just doing that, and I'm just making this up, this is not what I did, but just as what it is, is first of all, it's a great exercise in creativity.

Yep.

Right. Entrepreneurs, I think, need to be very creative because I think future belongs to, to creators. Second of all, when I mentioned there's no such thing as a good or bad memory, there's a trained memory and untrained memory. This is training your memory, right? And so you tend, once you train your memory, you start remembering, you know, other things because you're training your attention, your imagination, your storing information. And then you can work backwards from the story also as well. If you want to add, you know, the red high heel, you could put that into the story also as well and imagine that red high heel. you know, that's coming from the iPhone or whatever. Maybe imagine on the broken iPhone, there's an image on there of that red high heel, but the screen is broken, right? And then imagine it comes out of the phone tied to, you know, a brain-shaped balloon going up in the sky.

Yeah.

And you bribe somebody $100 to get that balloon for you. And so you're attaching $100 to it, and somebody wants to, uh, is gonna go get that balloon, but there's— maybe it's like a little mouse going on a little mini treadmill going towards it. And I think if it makes you laugh, it makes it memorable, right?

Just like— 'Cause emotion helps, right?

Yeah, emotion helps a lot. You know, and so that little mouse is on the treadmill, not obviously making a lot of traction, you know, and then, you know, from there, he's taking some notes in his, you know, his diamond notebook.

Cute.

And that's just one way, but there's certainly a lot of other ways. But— and as I go through it, and I'm just talking about it, Some people will listen and not be able to do it because they just listen. But if they actually went through and imagined that little story and made up their own, which is even better if you make up your own, that would be something that's really simple to do. And then, by the way, those 10 things could have been cues or keywords for a speech, you know, as an example.

Oh, that's really smart. Like, so that you can remember your talking points. Yeah.

Like, like, imagine, like, you chose that pink flamingo because it represented a key idea They say a picture is worth 1,000 words in a talk or toast at a wedding or something like that.

Yeah.

You know, a certain feature, you know, then it gets, you know, maybe you want to talk about, you know, something that's embodied around Tesla, around energy, you know, technology, innovation, whatever it happens to be, and use that as your second point for your speech.

Yeah.

You know, and then maybe going there to, you know, a recipe or healthy eating or blue— you want to remember blueberries as a good brain food.

Are you visualizing it in your brain, or are you, like— are you visualizing the words themselves or, like, what the words represent?

So people could do either one. Everybody's a little bit different. It's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart. Everyone learns a little bit different. Some people can't visualize as well, or they don't think they can. And so those people could get more of a feeling for it and maybe hear the words, or maybe in different tones or tonalities or voices. Same thing with remember someone's name. You want to meet somebody named Matt, you can imagine them using your— they're using their tie. Imagine you're at a networking event or you're at a conference, you meet somebody and it's really fast. Someone says, hi, my name's Matt. And you just imagine using their tie as like a doormat. And it's so silly. You would never do that.

Yeah.

And but what it does is it overcomes what I call the 6-second syndrome. You know, somebody tells you their name, you have 6 seconds to do something with it. Otherwise it's gone. Right? The handshake breaks, name just falls right to the floor.

Yeah.

This is giving you some mental glue to be able to store the information. And then, you know, later on when you're saying goodbye, you see this person there. Oh, I remember that tie. What was I doing? I was wiping my feet like a doormat. What's the person's name? Matt. And then this is a way— remember I said you encode, you store, you retrieve. This is a way of encoding it in a way that's memorable and it's stored right on the person because the tie is the reminder, you know, as an example. And but once you know the person's name is Matt, Then the picture disappears. It was a means to an end.

Hmm. Just to remember his name.

Because the opposite is what most people did to memorize those 10 words. They would go pink flamingo, Tesla key, blueberry muffin, golden microphone, and so on. Repetition. The problem with repetition is it takes time. Like, repeating someone's name 50 times takes time.

So are we just kind of creating a mini story around each word?

Yeah. I mean, you think about how people remember things through history.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, think about the parables from the Bible, like stories. And you think about why we use stories in business, right? Because they, they're, they're vivid and people could see themselves inside the story. And we're— so they did, uh, they did a study called the Baker-Baker Paradox. You know, imagine we're in the studio and somebody walks in. They did this with a focus group. Somebody walks in and say, hi, my name is Mr. Baker. And then that— someone, they would leave. Somebody else would come in and say, hi, I am a baker.

Mm.

Right? Somebody else come in saying, hi, I'm Ms. Taylor. Somebody else come— you know, leaves. Somebody else comes in, hi, my name is Ms. Taylor. Right? And so— and so— and then they did that repeatedly. And then all of a sudden, they said, okay, which ones do you remember more of the names? And do you think they remembered the name or the occupation? Which, which—

Probably the occupation.

Yeah. And part of it is because when somebody says they're a baker, you imagine them like cooking and stuff. There's a story.

Yeah.

Right. You probably know they wake up very early to be able to make, you know, make their bread. So there's a whole picture and image and, uh, and it makes it more memorable than a word that's abstract.

Does it help? Like if you're meeting somebody at a networking event, like, okay, that's Hala the podcaster, or that's— and like kind of just attaching something else to it.

The more connections you make, like some people will go instead of seeing Matt, You know, so like Mark, I use a marker, put a check mark right on their forehead, and I'll just always remember that. And it makes me— if it makes me laugh or smile, then, you know, that's very— people could say that's very, you know, childlike. But, you know, who are the fastest learners? Like kids.

Yeah.

They could learn musical instruments, languages, everything. And they make fun of names all the time. I mean, I know as a kid, my name was, you know, Quick is my real name.

I didn't—

it's not like a stage name. I didn't change it. It's my father's name, my grandfather's name. But people made you know, Nestlé Quick, or they call me slow, but that's how kids learn, you know, naturally. So I'm not saying when I, when I, for David, I use a slingshot for David and Goliath, right to the nose. Now I'm not sharing this with David, right? This is what's going through my own mind, right? You don't want to know.

That's just what you're doing.

But some people could just, uh, FDR would do this. He would walk around his office, uh, President FDR, and his strategy was he wouldn't picture, turn the name into a picture like Carol singing Christmas carols or Mary getting married or something like that. And sometimes you come up with something that sounds like— like, have you ever forgot someone's name and you start going through the alphabet? Like, does it start with an A?

Yep. And then you get it eventually. Usually.

Or you get really nervous when you get to like W because there's not many letters after that. But something— imagine a letter could remind you of the name. Imagine something even that is like even stronger, you know, like Carol, Christmas Carol. Like, that's going to be— that's going to have more, more retention for sure. But FDR would be very, very good with names. He could go around his office, remember everyone's name. And how he reportedly did it was instead of putting a picture like David, you know, like the statue or whatever, he would imagine them, like, the name right on their forehead, you know? And you can almost— people could look at me right now in the camera and see Jim, or they could say, wow, Jim has to go to the gym and lift weights, or whatever it happens to be. It just gives you more to remember than just, you know, a random word.

Yeah. Well, that was so impressive that you remembered that entire list. Like, I'm, like, shocked. I wasn't sure if you were going to be able to do it, but of course you are.

But imagine being able to do that for what you read.

Yeah.

You know, like, this is, again, random words that don't mean anything, you know, not important to me. But imagine it's something you're studying that you want to learn, that you are interested in. You know, then it's even more exciting because you could use that information.

Yeah, I totally agree.

Or names or anything else.

I definitely want to get better at that. So what would be the best place? Like, we obviously can't go through every hack. Where can people learn from you, like, specifically about getting better at memory? Would it be Limitless?

Yeah, Limitless has one of the largest chapters, you know, in the book. It's in 50 different languages. I'm sure people could find it somewhere or the audiobook, you know, we go in even deeper in it and like have a conversation at the end of every chapter, you know, in like podcast format, you know, and we have the largest online We have the most popular memory program in the world. So people, it's not hard to find. You just, just search my name. You'll, you'll find it.

And you have a new book, Limitless Daily, that's going to be out pretty soon.

I'm so excited about this book.

I don't even have a copy. We're only getting to talk about it at a high level, but.

It is so amazing. I think here, here's like one of the most powerful, you know, brain hacks anybody could do. Um, I love the science. So Limitless, I wrote in a couple months, right? You know, it was my first book. I had 30 years of content. It was just really easy. Limitless took me a full year and I started writing as an entrepreneur. One of the things you need to do to be able to is to really manage your time.

Yeah, right.

Manage your focus. And what uses up a lot of time and energy is switching from tasks like multitasking. Yeah, because we're not actually multitasking, we're task switching. And every time you think you're on Slack and then do social media, you jump to this and that. We, we, number one, we lose time because it could retake, it could take anywhere from 5 or 10 minutes to regain your focus.

Yeah.

You know, on the new task. So we lose time. We're actually not gaining it. Second, we make more mistakes. I get to train some of the most amazing doctors worldwide. And do you know, like, like surgeons who try to multitask during operations will make more surgical errors, right? I mean, think about texting and driving, right? There's going to be more accidents. You can't do 2 cognitive activities well. You know, because you're switching tasks. And then finally, you use up a lot of energy. You know, when you're trying to multitask, you use a lot of blood glucose. So people struggle with brain fog or mental fatigue in the afternoon. Check on that. But focus is your superpower. And the challenge is, is like, think about the words we use. Like, there's a financial part to focus. Like, you pay attention.

Yep.

Right? Like, what if tomorrow morning, all of you entrepreneurs, every single time you put your focus to something, you had to take out your credit card or debit card or Apple Pay and you had to, you know, put it into Facebook every single time or Instagram or how like you would treat your focus differently.

Totally different.

Right. And so, you know, instead of like wasting that currency, that money, you know, you would invest it. And so how are you investing your focus? How are you saving and protecting your focus? You know, like you would do, like you would do money. And so that, that's one thing. But I think one of the biggest things people could do for an entrepreneur, it's not about time management because that's the only thing that's equal. Not everybody here, everybody here watching, like we all have different incomes, we all have different networks and connections, we all have different levels of education, whatever. What's consistent? 24 hours in a day.

Yep.

It's not even about time management. It's about mind management. It's about priority management. So the most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing, right? Everything I filter through, even in a world of AI, you know, as opportunities come or challenges or whatever, like for me, it's— this is my filter. If it's not a heck yes, like then it's heck no, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I'm like, right now there's nowhere else I'd rather be. Like, because I'm right here because like it was a yes, right? And, and so I could appreciate that. So I'm fully present. I'm not like, Or somewhere else.

Yeah.

The other thing is I filter, like, I think if this doesn't help me grow, glow, or flow, I say no. Doesn't help me grow, like grow my brand, grow my business, grow my personal development. If it doesn't help me flow, like be more effective, and if it doesn't help me glow, like make me feel good, then I say no. And I know, like in the beginning, especially for entrepreneurs, right, you have to feed your business until it feeds you back.

Yeah, you got to.

Of course. You know, right. And if you want to— but I do really believe you want your business to grow or your bank account to grow, uh, then we need to grow, especially, you know, our learnings.

And focus. Focus to me is probably the number one underrated secret of being successful. And I meet a lot of younger people who are, or even older people who are struggling and like unable to kind of like take off on their career and like make something of themselves. And I truly believe it's because they never focused on one thing really hard for long enough.

And because also we live in a world of distractions, as people— so people's focus, especially with short-form content, everything. And I'm not even judging that because we use that, right? And technology allows this to happen, all of this, and be able to share our message and our impact at scale. So it's so very important. But what I'm saying is like we have to— we could train our focus and you could train your focus like a muscle, just like you could train your memory.

Yeah.

You know, to be present. And that shows up in as an entrepreneur. Because the enemy there is distraction, right? And there's so many things, shiny objects for an entrepreneur.

Yeah.

You know, entrepreneur ADD, you know, it's, it's, it's a challenge. But here, but here's, here's the hack. If you want to win the day, you have to win the first few minutes of the day. And what I mean by that, and when we train your focus, when, when you wake up, there's a process that you go through called sleep inertia. Sleep inertia is the transition between the sleeping state to the awake Yep. And there's certain things that come online. Your alertness comes online, your, uh, your conscious awareness, your attention comes online, and your working memory, which is like your short-term memory, is not even full yet because you haven't inputted anything in yet. That time is that short window for when you wake up. Here's what happens. The mental input that you bring in at that time has a disproportionate effect on the rest of the day. So what I mean by that is that first few handful of minutes first thing in the morning has a disproportional effect on things like your mood for the day.

Yep.

What you're going to focus on the day. So the things that you look at first is going to determine like, like a large disproportionate influence on like what you're going to see and focus on. Also how you frame situations. So we go through situations throughout the day, difficulties, demands, whatever. And whether or not we're having more of an empowering framing on it, like this is a good thing or bad thing or useful thing, or look for an opportunity, that is a lot of it is preset first thing that morning. Now, what do most people do first thing when they wake up? They grab their device.

Yep.

Right.

They're looking at their phone.

And I just saw this Facebook reminder from over 8 years ago. Simon Sinek and I have a video, has 37 million views on Facebook, and it was just talking about the effect of our devices, especially first thing in the morning, if we're that impressionable. Because what happens is you pick that, you pick up your phone and that window, which has a disproportionate effect on the rest of the day, what are you wiring your brain for? Distraction, number one. Every like, share, comment, cat video, ring, ping, ding, app notification, whatever it is.

Yep.

Is, yeah, that dopamine flood, right? Which you didn't have to earn, which is a whole conversation around motivation. And then you wonder why you can't focus later that day. Because the first thing you did was flex your distraction muscles. But the second thing it wires your brain for, which is almost as dangerous to your productivity and performance, peace of mind, even your profitability as an entrepreneur, you're training your brain not only to be distracted but also be reactive. Like, you ever pick up your phone first thing in the morning and you get a message and it hijacks your mood?

Totally. Or it hijacks the hour.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You just don't get what you're supposed to get done.

That's sleep inertia. They call it attentional priming. Like your mood, that could, that could last for you for hours. Like you have one voicemail message or an email from an angry client or a WhatsApp or Slack or whatever, and all of a sudden that's your focus for the day.

Mm-hmm.

And what is it doing? It, it's reactive. Like Brendan Burchard has this quote, you know, your inbox is nothing but a convenient organizational system for other people's agenda for your life. So you're fighting fires, right? All of a sudden. So how are you going to build an extraordinary day you know, which leads to weeks, months, years, you know, the life that you want. If you're, if you're, if you're on the defense.

Yeah.

Right. As opposed to proactively saying, these are the 3 things I need to win. So we— so the book you mentioned is called Limitless Daily. I wrote one page a day, 366 entries, and I wrote it for my, my 2 young kids for when they're adults. And it has one power idea, right? And the science behind it, because I like either the psychology or the neuroscience behind it. And it's written in a very inspiring, fun way. And then one implementation that they could do in less than 1 minute. And then it has a new identity statement of who you're becoming, right? All on one page. I love that. And so the idea here is in that, in that sleep inertia window, right, where you're attentional priming, you could read this book and then all of a sudden You have a disproportionate advantage throughout the day.

That's so good.

And I, what I did was I was, I would wake up and write and I would think about what am I facing today? And any of the themes that everyone could relate to, procrastination, maybe a lack of focus today, uh, imposter syndrome, uh, frustration, overload, too much opportunity, whatever it happens to be. And I write on that and I research the science behind it. I give them one tactic they could do. So in 5 minutes, first thing in the morning, it sets you up to win and be more limitless that day. So it's, uh, limitlessdaily.com is where people find out more information.

So cool. I can't wait for that book.

Oh, I can't. I, this is like my best work.

That's gonna be so good. Attention is really the new IQ. Attention is really what's gonna differentiate people with all this technology and all this AI. Um, it's really about focus and, and honing your focus. I was reflecting about that. Even with like, let's just take the example of me studying for a podcast and how that's evolved over the years, right? When I first started my podcast, I had more time. I didn't have 2 companies and I would study 20 hours per guest. I would listen to all their books. I would listen to all their interviews.

Wow.

I would take a whole week and study them. There was no video, so it was audio only, so I could have like lots of notes and like I'd prepare like crazy. Then like, as I had a company, like that had to change. Um, And it's, and I had a team that would help me. Now I use AI and I upload transcripts, I upload PDF books. I, I have like a, an app that helps me. Um, and I was going so crazy with the AI that like there was a period of time where like I'd come to the interview and I'd be like, I just spent 3 hours using AI to prepare for this interview, but I don't feel prepared. And it was just like really interesting. And then I had to say, okay, what am I doing wrong? And now I've, I've created a new process where I, I do this stuff with AI, but then I put it in an app that I can listen to it and I make sure that I do it before the interview so that in the morning of the interview for like while I'm getting ready and stuff, I'm just listening to everything to actually absorb what I did.

Nice.

You know? So that sort of helps, but I still feel like, how do I, like, I'd love to hear your opinion on collaborating with AI and how to make sure we're not outsourcing too much with AI.

AI is interesting, right? AI scales and it amplifies, but it only scales and amplifies what we bring to it, right? And so I feel like AI, there's a whole fear and concern around that AI will replace us. What— that's a different conversation. But if it's— I feel it will replace people who aren't using AI and also learning their own, you know, building their own human intelligence. Right. But I feel like it— the conversation is not so much will it replace us, but it definitely will reveal us.

Mm-hmm.

Because if it's amplifying and scaling, what is it amplifying and scaling? If an entrepreneur brings chaos and confusion to AI, it's going to magnify and amplify chaos and confusion. Right? As opposed to entrepreneurs bringing clarity and discernment, it'll give them— it'll scale that also. Like AI is no longer a competitive advantage because everybody has access to it. We all have access to it, right? Somebody could use AI to write a great social media post. Wonderful. Somebody else could use AI to build the next billion-dollar venture, you know? And so it's, it's the human intelligence that you're bringing to it that determines the performance and the ultimate result. It's like I get to work with a lot of athletes, the NFL, the NHL, the MLB, F1 drivers, right, with reaction time, thinking speed. Like, let's think about it like a race car, a multimillion-dollar piece of technology. It's a performance tool. That's AI. But it's the driver that determines its performance, right? Because everybody could have access. For sure. Yeah.

You know, all of them have great cars, but it's the driver.

It's there. So I feel like my work is what I teach— focus, memory, flow, habit, brain optimization, sleep, whatever, accelerated learning, speed reading, memory, all the stuff that we have on our online academy. It's meant to enhance human intelligence. I really do believe human intelligence is more important than artificial intelligence because, again, it's— AI could do amazing computation, pattern recognition, right? But ultimately, human beings they decide what things mean out of that data. They decide what to focus on, on that data. They decide what, what to do with that data in terms of next steps. So it's the humans that are going to— like, it's like Iron Man's suit. It's like AI, but Tony Stark is just bringing a lot to it that he'll get bigger results. And so my focus, I feel like in a world of, you know, rapid change, accelerated technology and AI, I just don't want the dependence, right? Everyone's heard about the MIT study where students who are writing essays at college, they, you know, they broke them down to ABC groups. A, ChatGPT they used. B was Google. They used Google. And C, no technology. And when they tested them, and I'm summarizing this, you know, Group A didn't remember anything.

Just similar to the experience of podcasts.

Yeah.

They didn't remember anything because they didn't have to work for it. Right? And also when they scan brains, like the ones that actually did the work, Bruce said they remembered. And also not only that, but more of their cognitive networks were just activated. Right? And so I wrote about this in 2020 when the book came out, Limitless. I called it digital deduction. So digital dementia is the high reliance on technology to remember things.

Yeah.

Your to-dos, your calendar, your phone numbers. Like nobody wants to remember 500 phone numbers. But it should be very concerning that we've lost the ability to remember one phone number or PIN number or passcode or something. Have you ever read a page in a book at the end, just forgot what you just read? Right. That, that's, that's the kind of things we want entrepreneurs to be better at. But digital deduction is the high-reliance technology that thinks for us. I mean, even think about GPS. Like there was a time when we need to use our visual spatial intelligence instead of using a piece of technology to tell us where and when to turn.

Now we can't go anywhere without it.

Yeah. And so that's the dependence on it. So this is the thing. Your brain, like even my shirt says, use it, right? Use it or lose it. So the idea here is your brain's like a muscle. It's an organ, but acts like a muscle. Use it or lose it. But if you put your arm in a cast for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger. It wouldn't even stay the same.

Yeah.

It would weaken and atrophy. That's digital dementia and digital deduction. So the idea here is I'm all for using technology, you know, but if it's doing all the thinking, so, you know, let it think, but let you, but We should think too.

Yeah, right.

Let it help you to remember something. You should still remember things also, you know? And so, you know, the problem is when we grab technology out of habit and without intention or without very— like, we give our minds prompts all the time. Like, I'm very efficient with AI because I've been giving my HI a lot of prompts, like, you know, with the training, you know, the questions that we ask, you know, like questions like— you know, I use this all the time in AI, is like, you know, explain this to me like I'm 10 years old, right? That would be a way of summarizing difficult conversations with a podcast guest or summarize this book, certainly. Right. Or also, you know, propose questions like, you know, give me 5 questions that this person's never been asked for public, you know, about publicly that my specific audience that we've trained, you know, would, would, would really resonate with.

Yeah.

But it also could be something like we could take all the principles in Limitless you know, memory palaces, like, and, you know, spaced review, you know, it could quiz you, right? It could every— you could schedule it, it could go be linked to your calendar and just say, let's do spaced repetition. I want to really understand this and master this subject.

So using AI to actually make sure that you know the material too. I do that too.

Yeah, it's like literally there's a chapter in Limitless that says, you know, how to use AI to enhance your HI, taking those principles and translating it to be able to to be able to quiz you, to be able to get you to rapid review, to see what you know, to be able to— you could say like, hey, mind map this subject for me, dot, dot, dot, take notes and be able to show this. And then, you know, and then there's so many other things that you could do with it. And it's literally limitless. My thing is just in a world of artificial intelligence, you don't want human intelligence to become artificial and not valuable. Right. And so I feel like there's human, certain human qualities that now more than ever, you know, like you even see like online with all the commencement speeches for graduation.

Yep. And they mention AI and then like the people are really upset, like, and they're booing and they're like, oh, there's a really big movement out there where people are really anti-AI.

Yeah, it could be scary because it's also people are losing their identity, right? If, if, if an AI could replace— I was just literally in a car where the, the, the, the, the, here in Austin where the, where the, where the Uber driver which is complaining the entire time about these Waymos that are going around taking the jobs and all this other stuff. But that's— this is just the beginning of that.

Yeah, it's going to happen.

And so I feel like AI is a tool that can magnify or multiply, but it only magnifies, multiplies, and amplifies what we bring to it. And so I feel like even more than ever, is it important to work on our own intelligence and see what we bring to it?

I totally agree. I mean, like, I feel like we've all been kind of like, like AI has just been sort of thrown at us and we, we've all had to experiment with it. I think it's good to kind of fail on your own with it like I did.

Yeah.

Because you just like learn the hard way. Um, and then you're able to kind of guide also like your employees of how to use it better. Something that I'm kind of going through right now, I've, I've implemented AI, I have 60 people on my team. And so we did this whole AI training and everybody has this program that basically uses Claude and ingests their email and their Slack and everyone's like using AI really well. But at the same time, now everything I'm getting feels so AI generated and I'm like, you guys need to still use your brains. Like, you know, this is not gonna cut it. Like my, my, uh, somebody on my team sent me a sales deck that I completely had to redo this weekend because it just was so obvious. And like, she's so smart and I'm like, this is not the advice that you would be giving.

Yeah.

And like, this is way too AI. And she's like, well, it really wasn't. And I was like, it was like, cuz I can tell, right? So what kind of human intelligence, like, what are the characteristics that we should really focus on? And we talked about attention and memory, which I think just being charismatic is going to help people in the future. What else in terms of human intelligence, HI, should we be concentrating on?

So what makes us human in a world of AI? I think this is the conversation. I think we're living in the conversation of our time right now is how do we become, uh, how do we become deeply human in a world of— in an age of AI, right, where everything feels artificial or there's that AI slop that you're referencing, like this feels like AI and people can detect it, right?

Yeah.

I think where we can lean into a number of things. Curiosity, right? Curiosity sparks wonder. It asks better questions, not only of AI but of ourselves also as well. I would say leadership. is huge. You know, our ability to influence and impact people around us, to inspire them. I think that's critical. That's a human quality. I would say, let's say emotional intelligence. So very important because I think EQ is so important for interpersonal— like EQ leadership is maybe external, emotional intelligence, self-reflection. Right? To be able to look within, to be able to reflect instead of react, and to have some kind of emotional regulation, you know, to be able to have, you know, that with others. Adaptability. Very— it's— I think it's human beings. That's our superpower, ability to adapt. I think in a rapidly changing world, our ability to learn, unlearn, relearn, to be able to adapt, learn new skills, that everything is figureoutable, is so very important.

Mm-hmm.

You know, also, also as well, these are things that are— that I would love for people to lean into, into, into more.

Yeah.

You know, it's not always taught, you know, I mean, you could think about, you know, you can make— even make an acronym. You make a word like HUMAN, you know, H is heart for the emotional intelligence, you know, part. And you can kind of make like a whole thing. But it's just whether you use acronyms or mnemonics or like these stories, there are things that I feel that Again, that it's what we bring to the AI that would make it just like it's in technology. It's always been like that with technology.

Yeah.

Right. But my thing is not to be dependent on it, meaning that an elevator is a form of technology. If you— if your office is on the 4th floor, your apartment's on the 4th floor. Yeah, an elevator is very convenient, but then you don't get your steps in.

Yeah.

You know, if you take a Lyft to go to the bank 8 blocks away, very convenient form of technology, but then we don't get our steps in. Right. And so I feel like every day we can make it, every moment we, we have a chance 'cause we can make a new choice.

Yeah.

And so I like the balance of using it, um, but don't let it use you and not let our own gifts kind of atrophy.

I wanna bring it back to something that you just mentioned where you saw these commencement speeches and when people bring up AI, they start to boo. I was actually pretty shocked because for the last like 2 years I've been talking about AI on the podcast and—

Yeah.

I'm kind of in this like entrepreneurship bubble where we embrace AI, we're, we're Mm-hmm. Excited about AI. We see the opportunity. And of course there's some bad things with the environment for sure that they need to figure out. But I saw so much social content where people were just like badmouthing Mel Robbins, who I love, and Reese Witherspoon and all these folks for telling women to start using AI and, and, and kind of making people know that women are less likely to use AI and why women really need to lean into it so we don't get left behind. And there was so much pushback from women, um, who don't wanna use AI and refuse to use it. And it just made me feel really sad cuz I just feel like all these people are gonna be left behind because they think they're doing the righteous thing by not using AI. Uh, when in reality, I think that's gonna really hurt them in the future. I personally feel that way. How do you feel about that?

The environmental concerns are, you know, the, that, that is, I mean, that could be a whole podcast on, on itself. So, you know, if we, if we, To have the conversation, if we separated that, you know, we'll talk about it. Technology has always been a tool, like the internet, right? Like a, like a smartphone. We can't put it back into the box, right?

Yeah.

That genie is out of the bottle. So it's, it's going to be here. It's, it's a challenge, just like with anything that we use. You know, obviously it'd be better if it was, you know, net, you know, net zero, you know, in terms of the impact that, that the imprint it has on the environment so that, that That aside, you know, I feel like, yeah, some people are— I mean, think about the unknown, right? The unknown in the mind, the nervous system wants to protect itself, right? And doesn't want to waste a lot of energy. Anything that's new, like starting a business or talking to that person, you know, that fear that we have, that amygdala kind of fight or flight response is to kind of protect us, right? To kind of keep things efficient, stable. Because change— what people don't talk about in the entrepreneurial space is that change is scary, right? And it could be AI, right? It could be the environment. It could be politics, political change. It could be market change in demand, supply, all these different things, you know, threats, competitor threats or whatever. Change can be scary. Growth can be hard.

You know, it's hard to build 2 businesses, to do what you've done, you know, with the podcast for the last 8 years. People don't see what goes on behind the scenes. But nothing is as scary and hard as being stuck somewhere you don't, you don't belong. And so I don't know who needs to hear this, but I think life is hard for one of two reasons. Either we're— we leave our comfort zone, you know, we take our business next level, we ask for the investment, whatever it happens to be, right? Or life's difficult because we stay in our comfort zone. Then life gets very, very difficult.

Hmm.

You know, and AI is very disruptive. You know, it, you know, it changes people's it's not even just a different workflow. It's also challenging and threatening people's identity.

Yeah.

Like who they are, right? Like if somebody, as I'm using a random example, like if somebody is an artist, right? And AI is doing all this stuff or someone's an attorney and you could have access to all the legal advice you need or a therapist or you name it, like it could be pretty threatening when we spent our whole life preparing for you know, to be this person. This is who we are. And if a machine could do that, you know, what does that make me? You know, much less our self-confidence and self-esteem, our self-worth in a world of being relevant. So that, that, that, that could be a friction for people adopting this. You know, also, I also feel like, you know, I'm leaning into human intelligence, you know, regardless of what— I've always done that, regardless of the technology, whether it's AI or something else, you know, as it evolves. just because it's, it's our agency, you know, like I really do believe even the book, when people see it, it's purple. And by the way, I have 5,000 books and like, I— there's no purple books. So from a mindset standpoint, like, you know, I wanted to stand on shelves, but also when people— it would stand on people's minds.

Also purple psychology, the words that always came up in color psychology: sovereignty, agency, like an entrepreneur.

Yeah.

taking responsibility for their, you know, the direction of their life and their wisdom. So I think part of it is the unknown that people are threatened to. I think also not just unknown of what's happening outside, but, you know, their identity and self-perception is also threatening. And certainly there are other concerns like, you know, I go back to the environment for sure. So I think it's great that people could voice their concerns and we have dialogue about this, right? Discourse about it. This is what— and it's the challenging, like, like I also was surprised when I, when people started sending me those commencement speeches because the other thing is with this algorithm, I rarely see people that I follow on social media. I'm not on social media a whole lot. Yeah, but I rarely see the people I follow. I just see whatever I engage with. So we all are training that algorithm to show us what we want. Yeah. Yeah. So there is an echo chamber there. So like in entrepreneurship, everyone's pro-AI, everyone's an AI expert and so on. And then, but, you know, a lot of people, that's not where most people are living, you know, certainly.

And, but I'm sure people felt the same way about cars.

They did.

You know, and assembly lines, you know, and, and they will about, you know, self-driving cars and, and everything else.

And we just gotta adapt.

That's really the key.

We just have to adapt. And that's the key.

And that's what human beings, when they lean into it, that, that's why I think all learning is all adaption. Your ability to adapt, you know, in new environments, to be able to learn, unlearn, relearn new skills, new ideas, new systems is— makes us valuable, you know, today. And not everyone will do it, but that's the opportunity for people that do. So, you know, I look at AI like a lot of tools, you know, it's using it. I see it some more than artificial intelligence, augmented intelligence. It's a partner for us to use. And you could use it in, I mean, there are limitless ways to be able to use it, you know, for, as, and, and level, it also levels the playing field, you know, I mean, I, I wish when I got started 3 or 4 years ago, there wasn't even the internet, you know, in mass.

Yeah, it's the easiest time to be an entrepreneur right now.

Oh my goodness.

You can build your whole team with Claude.

I remember building our first course program in 2006, 2007. Like, it was like, you know how much camera equipment and everything else I had to do to—

Yeah, the cost of developers, all these things.

Oh my goodness, a website was tens of thousands of dollars back then, you know, and so, Yeah, it's, it's exciting times. So I'm, I'm, I'm more of an optimist, you know, for, for things, but I'm also a realist, you know? So we do the best we can with what we have, you know, and hopefully, you know, leave the, the world a better, brighter place.

So I wanna ask you one last question. This is around brain rot. So brain rot was the word of the year by Oxford in 2024. I was reading some stats and millennials and Gen Z, spend about 5 hours a day on their phone on average, just for entertainment purposes. Like, so not just screen time for school and work.

Mm-hmm.

For, for Gen Z, I think that's like 8 hours if it's just screen time, but 5 hours a day for entertainment. And that worries me because, um, that's a lot of time. Like, you can't focus or build something if you're spending 5 hours a day doom scrolling. And I just think it's a major problem. I also think task switching is a major problem. I find myself even like using 2 computers and like running an AI prompt. Mm-hmm. And then doing something else, checking my AI prompt and, and then I realize like, this is probably not effective. Right, right. Uh, so just help us understand as we close out this interview.

Yeah.

How can we retain our focus in this era of just so much distraction?

Yeah. What I'm gonna say is gonna be really simple, and I'm not even suggesting it's easy. But, and take this with a grain of salt, whoever's listening to this, like an entrepreneur or any individual, you can't be upset by the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do. And if you're spending 8 hours doomscrolling and rotting your brain and then have the audacity to complain that I went through this course or I listened to this, I have this mentor and a coach and you're not doing it. Like, I think people need to work until the results speak for themselves. And I've gone through this path. We, we have a number of businesses. You know, and I advise some of the biggest ones. And I'm just saying, every day we have a chance because we have a choice. It is still a choice. But if we repeatedly doomscroll and we know we're doing it, then it is a choice, right? And so I'm not saying— we've all watched Social Dilemma and we know that there are billions of dollars being put into these platforms with the top neuroscientists, behavioral scientists that make this addictive.

Yeah.

Right. And we all heard stories about a lot of these founders that they wouldn't let their kids on these platforms, you know, and we know that if there's not a product there, then we are the product that they're selling to advertisers. We all know this. And I— we advertise. So I probably stalk a lot of you with our content and our courses. So it's a tool that could be used for, in our opinion, to be able to impact. So brain rot's a real deal, right? If you're feeding— we just talked about your brain and how it's being wired by our devices. And you could scroll to infinity and that's fine. Who am I to judge if somebody wants to do that and do that? That's your prerogative. But if there's a gap between where you are and where you want to be, you know, in your business or your bank account or the impact or income or influence, and we're spending a third of our day like on, on those devices without any kind of results, then I would question how much you really want this. And I feel I still go back to agency and responsibility.

You know, years ago, I got to introduce 2 of my superheroes together. It was Richard Branson and Stan Lee. Stan Lee, like the late Stan Lee, who created all the Marvel characters. And they wanted— they both mentioned each other. They want to meet each other. So we, you know, we go to dinner and I'm in the car and I asked Stan, I was like, you created all these epic heroes. Who's your favorite? And he says, Jim, Iron Man. And then he says, Jim, who's your favorite? And he had— I posted this on social media— in the backseat, he had a Spider-Man tie. So I said, Spider-Man. And within his iconic voice, with a pause, he goes, with great power comes great responsibility, right? And maybe because I hit my head too much, I tend to sometimes reverse what I read or see or hear. And I said, you're right. With great power comes great responsibility, Stan. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power.

Hmm.

So, I don't think we have to be super hard on ourselves. I think when we're compassionate, Studies done on self-compassion say when you don't beat yourself up, when you're kind to yourself, you're more likely to make a positive change and follow through. So it's like you've missed your workout, you don't beat yourself up, you say, hey, I'm human, I had a kind of really hard day, and you're more likely to follow through as opposed to like, you know, be a critic for yourself. Same thing with doomscrolling, you know, and I would say like the first place to change is, is has to start with awareness. You know, you look, you look at your screen time on certain devices and you can't deny that. You know, and then you say, is this getting me the results that I want?

Yeah.

And if it's not, then you make a choice and it's your— it's their choice, their responsibility. They could either continue doing that and that's fine. That's their choice. But if they're looking to create something that requires time, energy, talent, you know, I would think like, oh, how do I repurpose this into getting what I want? And it's hard. I'm not saying change is easy, but if it was easy, Like everyone would just have like these great businesses and everything.

And part of it is changing your identity around it, correct? Because you are responsible to kind of— It is. Yeah.

It's a habit, right? And we don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. I'll tell you, like we, we, we, we don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our standards that we have. Like if people said like, I must make this amount of money, like must, like, or loved ones, like, you know, in jeopardy if they don't, like we will hit that standard. We fall to the level of our standards, our systems, and our self-image. Like that, that, that's it. And we control all 3 of them, you know? And so I feel like I'd be working if it— first you create your habits, then your habits create you. If you're spending 8 hours, 5 to 8 hours a day habitually picking up your phone mindlessly, then you need to interrupt that. And the best way to do habit design— and we've had James Clear and BJ Fogg and, you know, Charles Duhigg, all the best on our podcast.

Same.

You know, like it's, it's environmental design. You can control your environment. Like, and I'm not saying this is easy, but like, don't have your phone by your nightstand. Put it in your, in your bathroom. The first principle of environmental design is you want to make what's good for you easier and you want to make things that are not good for you harder. Like you're not going to snack if you don't have the junk food in your home. You're not going to— you're changing your environment. It's not going to make it easy, right? If you take the app and you had to log in every single time into your, into your apps or reinstall it, it's not going to be easy. It's not going to be worth it. And that's how you change that. And then your identity changes once your behavior changes because you create evidence that you are the person that you say you are. And I think that's so very important, you know, that you are— you don't see yourself as this procrastinator or whatever it is. You see yourself as somebody who gets things done and you create evidence, like real-world evidence that, you know, validates that.

But I would say we make a choice. Like, there are only 4 choices you can make, right?

Yeah.

Again, life is the letter C between B and D. B is birth, D is death. Life's a choice. We always have that choice. That's the sum total of everything. And you only have 4 choices you can make to make, make your business better, your brain better, your body better, your life better. Stop something, start something, do less of something, do more of something. That's it. Because the 5th thing is do nothing. That's insanity expecting different results. So you stop. Stop checking your phone first thing in the morning. Start a meditative process which trains your focus. So you're not going to be as addicted. You know, you pull your focus back when you need to do less of something, do less binge-watching stuff or doomscrolling and do more movement. Right? Like, it's just— it's so simple. I'm not saying easy.

Yeah.

But it is so simple. Like, we know what to do. We're not doing what we know. Common sense is not common practice. That's why these conversations are so important, because who's Who's talking about these kind of things, right? That gives people like some insight and some inspiration to say like, oh, I'm gonna make a new choice today. And just if you're going this way, you take like every morning, for example, when the reason why this book is so important, I think, in that special time was this proportion of time.

That was one of my favorite things that we learned too.

Yeah. Like, because when you wake up, you're getting into an airplane metaphorically and you're, you're going through the day to a destination. Now, like the first thing the pilot, like when you get in a plane, they set the course to go to the city. If you're off course just 1%, over time, over the length of that flight or that 24 hours in that day, you could end up in a different city or country.

Mm-hmm.

Just a 1% shift. And sometimes when you get in that plane, you maybe are the passenger and there's turbulence. What's the turbulence? It's distraction. It's your phone. It's energy vampires. It's other people's expectations, right? Shakes it up. Or some people are allowing the plane to be hijacked and you're— they're just taking That person who's leading is just directing your course to wherever they want it to go. You know, my work with this book is like, hey, let's walk to the cockpit together. You're sitting down, you are the pilot of your mind today, and we're gonna set the course, uh, of where we're gonna go. Like, like for example, like that, that window again that you get disproportionate amount of like results for the rest of the day with the mental input. Same thing with physical input. If, if you woke up and the first thing you did was eat a bunch of junk food and donuts and everything else, first thing you do.

Glucose rollercoaster.

Yeah. And then that would have disproportionately affect the rest of your day. Yeah. Your focus, your mood, how you feel about situations because you're in that crummy mood. I mean, think about like the mental diet that you have first thing in the morning.

Yeah.

You know, people wouldn't doubt it. So like, like why would you start your day with confusion and, and doom scrolling and violence and leads and leads and like everything, comparison and all the other stuff?

Yeah.

Right. And, but we choose to do that because we're letting the technology use us and then we become the tool. And I don't know, I don't know. And maybe I'm a little bit passionate about this because I see the effects on mental health, you know, especially for younger generations. You know, they're scoring less on aptitude tests academically also. But mental health, you know, is surpassed like all for the biggest challenge that people are facing.

I think a lot of people in like Gen Z, millennials, we're like consumed with things like The wars going on, the Epstein files, the aliens now, that, like, we're getting, like, bombarded with all this craziness that seems so important to know about that it's so hard to turn it off.

Yeah. And again, I'm not who, you know, I'm not any more important to be able to say that this is important or not. So people can decide what's important. You know, like, for me, I think it's All that could be important, and, and it is, but there's gotta be some kind of stopgap in terms of where you can't possibly—

You only have so much mental bandwidth, right?

Throughout the day. And then the result, the result is this burnout, you know, this digital depression, this doom, like all the, the brain rot, everything else like that. So it's interesting. There's this dichotomy polarity where, you know, sometimes you put limits to become more limitless, just like as an entrepreneur, like, or even writing this book, I, I had a deadline. that I had to hit. So when there's a constraint of time or money or whatever, then you— what does it do? It forces human intelligence, it forces curiosity, it forces concentration, it forces commitment to be able to do that. So a limit makes you more limitless, go beyond what you normally do, because it's just going to fill the space. If I had 2 years to do it, it would take 2 years, right? But I would say putting borders and boundaries around your mental health, your time, the things that you value, I think is— that would because I can't affect— if people choose to put their attention to things, I would just say, as long as you're doing something about it, because otherwise, what are we doing? Then we're indulging and getting in the storyline.

But if we're not doing something about it, then the net effect is nothing. Just because we could spend an inordinate amount of time spiraling, you know, in our own mental health and challenges. I'm not saying turn a blind eye.

Yeah.

But if you're going to do that, then you might as well get— do something with that energy and that knowledge, you know? And it's challenging for entrepreneurs. Other people take approach like, I can't change the personal economy, but I can focus on my personal economy. I'm not going to change the healthcare system, but I can focus on my family's health, you know, and wellness also. And some people take that approach. But I think we make the choices and that's the, you know, it is a system of control because this technology could— it will eventually, you know, whether it controls us, but putting borders and boundaries. And stopgaps, I think, is important, especially around the things you value— your time, your energy, your emotions. You know, maybe there's some people in our lives that might not be nurturing to, you know, us and who we are at this point in time. But yeah, I think there's a lot of important things that are going on. I'm not saying don't focus on them. I'm just saying for what result, you know? But if you're going to do something with it, yeah, please. We need more people who are going to do great things, you know, and help us in the situations that we're in.

You know, and, but, but I know my energy, my time, for example, is finite. So I'm gonna focus on what I could control and where I can impact the most, you know, for things. Um, but it also doesn't mean, you know, I, I like to pay attention. I like to know what's going on. But also there's come a point where I can't pay attention to everything. Yeah.

You don't need to pay attention for 5 hours a day.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I could, I feel you.

Yeah. Um, okay. So Jim, this was an awesome conversation. I feel like I could talk to you forever, but I'm gonna end the, show with 2 questions I ask all my guests.

Okay.

The first one is, uh, doing something actionable today. So what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do to be more profitable tomorrow? We did talk about first 15 minutes in the morning and like capitalizing on that.

Yeah.

Is there anything else from this new Limitless Daily book?

Okay, so let's go back to that. Even if you don't read Limitless Daily in that window first thing in the morning, which would be, which I'd be great. A gratitude practice will put you in that state, right? People could list 3 things that they're most grateful for and come from that place because that'll set the tone for the rest of the day. They'll tend to see things that they're more grati— more grateful for. Right. And which leads to more opportunities. I think if anyone wants to feel wealthy, just count all the things you have in your life that money can't buy. Right.

Yeah.

There's so many, like, things like we wouldn't trade, you know, maybe some of your senses or some of your whatever for amount of money. And that's That's a good place to come from, that we were— we are already blessed. If you're listening to this, able to watch this, you're probably more abundant than 99% of the population. The other thing you could do is like I do this thought experiment where I'll sit in bed and I'll imagine in those first few minutes, fast forward, I'll do this mental experiment where I'll travel through time and I'll imagine myself getting into bed that night. And maybe somebody asked me, or my wife asked me, like, how was your day? And I was like, today was amazing. Oh my God, like, da da da. And then I ask myself, what had to happen in order for me to feel that way? And I think of 3 things personally, 3 things professionally, and they don't have to be huge things. 3 things personally, 3 things professionally. And those 6 things become my focus for the day. That becomes this, like, I'm getting on the plane. These are the things I want to be able to hit because I'm not going to get through that 200 to-do list, right?

Yeah. And none of them are relevant. So I think about things that that, that are lead dominoes, that if I did that, it makes everything else easier. You know, I think a lot of the treasure entrepreneurs seek is hidden in the work that they're avoiding. I don't know who needs to hear this, but that conversation you need to have or that step that you need to take, that commitment. But I would, I would plan with the end in mind. So, you know, instead of being reactive and then touching your phone, do something with that for a few minutes. And as I mentioned the book, but do gratitude process or think about your 3 most important things to achieve that day. And I wouldn't just be thinking about the end result. I'd be thinking about like, I don't even— when I do goal setting, I do something called future episodic remembering where my goal is so vivid, it's as if I'm remembering it happened, right? Like I could, I could, I could imagine it as real as what I had for breakfast this morning. Right. So there's— and that's one of the entries in the book.

Right. And so there's 366 of those in 5 minutes to just 5x your day. But I would also, when you're thinking about that thing, like when you're thinking about goal setting, I would think about not so much— I think people make the mistake of just obsessing about that goal and visualizing that goal, that getting that award or maybe seeing that money in their bank account, whatever it is. I'd be obsessing, rehearsing what it took to get you there. What are the habits where it's naturally going to happen?

It's the daily differences that you make, not just the one thing.

Because your mind, it's so crazy. Like, like so many people are rehearsing and reviewing through anxiety of the future or, you know, or worry of future or something that happened in the past, they're, they're rehearsing failure in their mind. Like, they're repeating over and over again what they don't want to happen. And regardless of the, you know, laws of attraction and quantum physics, forget about that. We are literally wiring our minds to be able— whatever we do repetitively, we get better at. And so what I'd be thinking about, yes, you could acknowledge that this is the goal, I would be reviewing like the night before, that morning of, if I'm writing, me going to my computer, opening it up and start typing. I would be repeating that. So there's zero friction for me to do it because I've just done it 100 times in my head.

Right.

Like, I don't— like, I go on stages. I've been on 2,200 stages, quarter million people every single year as an introvert, you know, but I practice in my mind like 200,000 times, right? And so I think we want to get really— the other technique, the thing I would mention for people watching, besides using that high-leverage time window first thing in the morning to do something, then touching your phone or whatever, I would be doing mental rehearsal around the habits that will get you where it's going to happen naturally and effortlessly. It's like undeniable that this will happen if you did this. I'd be rehearsing that.

Okay. My last question to you is, what is your secret to profiting in life? And because I've asked you this a few times, let's put it profiting in life this year.

When we talk about the treasures of, of our life, that some of them could be financial. Yeah. You know, certainly, um, not everyone measures it based on, on things and people sometimes get into depression of comparison online. And, you know, it's, I just wanna remind people, it's, The grass is greener where you water it. And online, there's a lot of, there's a lot of artificial turf. You know, there's a lot of filters being used. So it's not always what we see that we're comparing our lives, you know, to something or somebody else. In terms of profiting, in terms of my professional life, it's all about this book. You know, this book has the potential to reach a lot of people. even millions more. This book, everyone was asking after Limitless, which is like dense, like how to learn. It's an owner's manual for your brain. All the things that you'll learn, how to remember things, names and everything else like that, speed read everything in that book. But people are like, how do you break this down into something that's really simple? So that's why this Limitless Daily, right? I think books changed my life when I, when I was growing up, I couldn't read.

I never finished a book cover to cover. My teachers would have been surprised if I read a book, much less wrote books. But it's just a reminder that I don't know one strong person that had an easy life, that adversity can be an advantage for anyone struggling right now with business or something else. I would say that what lights me up, I could think of a lot of other ways of making money. I know enough people, but, you know, I choose this path because how I measure profit, you know, this whole idea is like a millionaire is someone who's helped a million people, you know, or billionaire is someone who'll be able to support a billion people.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and my goal for decades has been 1 billion brains, you know, no brain left behind. And I'm hoping this book is a big leverage point for us to be able to, to come on, you know, quality media like this and share it with more people who are struggling right now, you know, whether it's in AI or their identity or imposter syndrome. I literally took the biggest issues that people face and we polled our community also, which is sizable, and did an entry on each of these things: frustration, overload, procrastination, You know, why, why can't I get myself to do what I need to do? Um, focus overload, everything. Just did an entry and, uh, it's fun. I, I think it's a wild ride.

Well, this was such a great way to end the interview and I'm so excited for Limitless Daily. Like, I'm gonna do it every day once I get it.

Yeah, we're gonna do a whole, we're gonna do a whole 366 challenge. So it's great cuz everyone has a date and it has all this, so everyone's gonna be on the same page. So we'll do lives around it.

So when does it come out?

And it's coming out in September.

Amazing.

So we're, we're so, we're so pumped. So I, I appreciate the conversation. This was fun.

It was.

Yeah.

Thanks for coming on.

Oh, thank you everybody for watching. I challenge everybody to do one thing. Take a screenshot wherever you're consuming this right now and tag us both so we get to see it and share one thing that you're gonna do based on this conversation. Just one thing. Maybe you're gonna stop something, start something, do less of something, or do more of something. Because one of the best ways of learning anything You could be public about it. Certainly it's for accountability, but it's to teach it to somebody else. That way you put it out there and then your fans, your followers, your family, your friends get to, uh, get to benefit also. So thanks for having me.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast. Yeah, fam, I just loved having Jim Kwik back on the show and getting to sit down with him in person was truly the cherry on top. Jim has this rare ability to make you feel like your brain is capable of so much more than you've been asking of it. And after this conversation, I genuinely believe that. What hit me the hardest today was something Jim said that I keep turning over in my mind. AI scales and amplifies, but only scales and amplifies what you bring to it. Think about that for a second. Every entrepreneur is racing to adopt AI, myself included. But what if we're bringing to it scattered thinking, poor focus, and a memory we've never trained? Then AI is just going scale all of that chaos right back at us. The investment that actually matters the most is the one that you make in your own mind first. And speaking of memory, Jim completely reframed how I think about it. Remembering somebody's name, recalling a detail from a past conversation, staying present when someone is speaking to you— these are not soft skills.

These are trust-building tools. Jim told us about a commercial real estate deal worth $50 million that fell apart because somebody called a client by the wrong name twice. Twice. That's the cost an untrained memory does in business. When you remember people, you make them feel valued, and people do business with those who make them feel that way. Finally, I loved Jim's point about the morning. That small window right after you wake up before you check your phone is when your brain is most open and impressionable. Jim calls it attentional priming. What you feed your mind in those first few minutes sets the tone for your mood, your focus, and even how you handle challenges for the rest of the day. Most of us hand that window straight to our notifications, straight to the algorithm without thinking twice. Reclaiming that time might be the simplest performance upgrade available to any entrepreneur right now. So what are you gonna do in those first 15 minutes that you wake up? Your brain is not broken. It's just waiting for you to train it. Now, Jim has a new book coming out called Limitless Daily. It comes out in September.

You can preorder it right now. It is built for exactly that morning window that we talked about, the one powerful idea per day to train your focus, sharpen your memory, and set yourself up to win. Go preorder it right now and start treating your mind like the asset it actually is. If you're watching on YouTube, we are pushing hard towards 100K subscribers, so please go subscribe to our YouTube channel right now. It's called Young and Profiting. Go to this video, drop a comment, tell us one thing you're gonna do differently for your brain starting tomorrow. And if you wanna take it to the next level, if you really love me and you support the show, you're gonna go to that YouTube channel, take a screenshot of one part in this video that you love. Tell us what you learned. Share it in your story, share it on Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever you wanna post, and we will repost it. We'll share, we'll, we'll comment, and I'd love to hear from you. We're also on Spotify Video, so check us out there if you like watching your podcasts. And you can find us on all the major podcast platforms.

Of course, as always, huge thank you to all of our listeners that tune in each and every week, the ones that drop those 5-star reviews on Apple Podcasts and ratings on Spotify. You can also find me on Instagram @YapWithHala, on LinkedIn, search for my name. It's Hala Taha. This is your host, Hala Taha, AKA the Podcast Princess, signing off.