← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Jim Kwik on How to Unlock Genius and Uncover Your Superpower (Replay)
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You're listening to the Impact Theory podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers. Join host Tom Bilyeu, serial entrepreneur and co founder of the billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory. Hey everybody. Welcome to Impact Theory. You are here, my friends, because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless. But you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it. So our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that are going to help you actually execute on your dreams. All right, today's guest is a globally recognized leader in memory improvement, brain performance and accelerated learning. But no one would have predicted that when he was a kid, for a serious childhood accident left him with a traumatic brain injury and a significant learning disability. But instead of simply accepting defeat, he set about making up for his shortcomings through an obscene amount of hard work. He began sneaking comic books after bedtime to practice reading. And something about the collision of the words, images and the superhero mindset spoke to him. And for the first time, he began to make progress. But despite this, he continued to struggle, having to work two or three times as hard as everyone else to achieve lesser results. After exhaustion caused him to fall down a flight of stairs and sustain yet another brain injury, he realized something had to change if he was going to truly overcome his learning disability, he was going to have to dramatically improve his efficiency at learning itself. This began an obsession with the brain and the how of learning, an obsession he would ultimately turn into quick learning, a revolutionary accelerated learning system that now has a bevy of celebrity clients and students in over 150 countries centuries. His hyper effective techniques have been sought out by the likes of Virgin, Nike, Zappos, SpaceX, Harvard, and Singularity University. And he has directly trained or shared the stage with such luminary global leaders as Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson, and the Dalai Lama. His teachings have been featured in prestigious worldwide media, including the New York Times bestseller Use youe Brain to Change youe Age. Please help me in welcoming the man bestselling author Steven Kotler calls a superhero whose superpower is learning itself. The host of the phenomenal podcast Quick Brain, Jim Kwik. How you doing?
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B
Welcome, man. Good to be here.
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A
It's good to have you here. This is our second time doing this bad boy, and I have to say, you're probably, of all the people that I've interviewed, you're probably the person I've gotten the closest with off camera. So it's a lot of fun to bring you back and talk about different things. So people should go sign up for your courses. Look at all that stuff. You've got so much amazing content out there about the actual how to of learning. So I want to start somewhere a little bit different.
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B
Do it.
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A
Talk to me about being the son of immigrant parents.
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B
So my parents immigrated here to the United States from Asia. We grew up like a lot of. A lot of individuals that work really hard. Grew up in the back of a laundromat, and they had many different jobs. And I think one of the things that's important for all of us is just the work ethic to be able to put in like you do, the incredible hours as an entrepreneur, as a visionary, to do whatever it takes. Because I don't believe that there's necessarily a magic pill, but I think there's a process and doing the work is very important. I don't want people to believe that there's a silver bullet and all of a sudden you have a great memory or you have this great success or great relationship or health. And people always ask, what's the one thing I could do? And I always tell people that you have to. You have to do most of it, right? I mean, be smart about it, but you have to put in the work. Because, you know, a lot of times people see on social media, they see all of the success, but what they don't see is the hustle, right? As this Gary Vee talks about. And the. I think what you, as they say, what you practice in private, they say you're rewarded for in public. But you have to. You have to do the work. And I think that's where I got my work ethic. The challenges is growing up with a brain injury and labeled the boy with a broken brain. I had to work so much harder as everybody else. And you wonder why that. Why you're not getting those. And so I got my discipline from my parents, and I love them for I really say that they are my superheroes. Anything good that's come out of me is really a product of them as setting an example.
- [05:38]
A
What were they telling you as you were going through all of that? I mean, your story really is one of grit and perseverance. And I think your story would be a lot easier to understand if it had been really linear. You get the injury, and then you have the magic moment you figured out, and it's all roses from there, but you actually end up working your ass off, only to then, like, fall again. Literally fall again. What are they telling you through that? How are they encouraging you? How do they become your superheroes?
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B
It would be really clean. Sometimes life is messy, right? And success is not from just A to B in just a straight line. It goes all over the place. And so I would have loved that. My story was, oh, I had this brain injury, and all of a sudden, you know, this accident, and I was bitten by a radioactive elephant. I have this incredible memory or something, like, wasn't quite that I suffered and struggled. I had the brain injury when I was five years old, and I suffered all through elementary school, all through middle school, all through high school. And so it was like a good 14 years. And a lot of it was this thing where even as a young age, maybe I was pretending that everything was fine and I'd be struggling. It's kind of like that metaphor of a duck on a pond. And you see, it's all calm and relaxed, but underneath, it's just hustling really, really fast. And people don't always see what's below the iceber. But for me, I struggled privately and my parents, because I grew up with these challenges, and I didn't have a lot of people to talk to because when you have feel like you're broken, you don't connect with a lot of people. So on top of everything, I was also painfully shy. I was introverted, but I was also shy and very reserved, and I would always sit in the corner. And I honestly, I've never talked about this publicly, but I. I ask everybody, you know, what their superpower is, and I feel like that my superpower growing up as an insecure kid who felt like he was broken and taught that by adults, that my superpower was being invisible.
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A
Whoa.
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B
Like, I didn't want to be seen. I mean, I ultimately did want to be seen, and I want to be heard like most of us, and accepted and acknowledged, but I didn't want the spotlight like I would do. For example, my parents instilled, like, this work ethic about working hard. And so I would do a book report. And even though it was more difficult for me and to the point where I'd be like, okay, I have it, I was done. But if a teacher asked me in high school to present it in front of a class, I would actually lie and say I didn't do it. And I would take a zero because I was so terrified of being in front of a group of people, and I would throw it out on the way out of class. And it was really scary. But my parents always held that there was more, that there was purpose, that there's a reason that I was going through these challenges. I mean, my mother actually went into. Became a special ed teacher because she just really wanted to help. Because nobody knew.
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A
Because of what you went through?
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B
Because of what I went through. And so. Because. So they were very caring like that. But the challenge is we don't know what we don't know. And they did the best they could to be able to help me. But what they did instill in me was that there was a reason that through going through struggles, just like when they came to this country, now all of us go through struggles, right? In our health, our relationship, whatever it is. But through struggles come comes strengths, and people don't talk about this as much. And, you know, I probably have a post traumatic, you know, stress from it, going through brain injury after brain injury. There's also post traumatic growth, which, you know, like a lot of it's not as widely talked about, but there's some people that go through immense amount of trauma and difficulty and challenge, but they come out of it actually more empowered that they wouldn't. They say to themselves that because of going through this, I found a new strength. I found my superpowers. I found a new meaning in my life. I found a new level of commitment. I found a strength, a mission, if you will. And they wouldn't. Just a lot of them attest that they wouldn't trade that experience, no matter how painful it was at the time, for anything. And I find that growing up with reading challenges, and I couldn't read for an extra three Years I pretended how to read. It's like the imposter syndrome. They have this image of how they want to be projected to the world, and then they have this image of what they fear they are, and then they have their real. Who they are. But I think a lot of people are suffering and overload and overwhelm and they're depleted because they're trying to hold these images in place, you know, and then be themselves also as well, in different contexts. That's why I love you, because you are the same on camera and off. And there's a congruency, there's an authenticity that's there. And I feel like a lot of people expend unnecessary amounts of energy trying to hold up this image of their ideal self to the world. And they have this image that they fear it's going to be revealed to somebody else. And so growing up as a kid who, who couldn't read, I would pretend I understood things. Like teachers would explain things and I didn't want to be the only one who didn't understand. And I would pretend, but in private, I was really suffering and struggling. And so, you know, it's one of those things where you wonder why, like, my two biggest challenges growing up were learning and public speaking. So crazy. Which is the universe has a weird sense of humor because that's what I do for my mission now. And so it's interesting how things work.
- [10:53]
A
How did you push through that? Because so as somebody who's seen you speak publicly, you're so good at it. Like, you have so much energy and enthusiasm and projected confidence. Even if you're like secretly overcoming something, how do you go through the dark time of feeling like you've been identified as the kid with the broken brain, really struggling truly. Like, how do you get your self talk going in a positive direction? Like everything would be pushing back against you?
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B
Yeah, I think so. It's even. I even get nervous with doing things like this. And you know, that, you know, even being on camera or having my picture taken or there's still this residual. I always get butterflies, incredible amounts of butterflies before I go on stage. Every single time. How I get through it. I mean, we talked about, we've talked about previously about mindset and about the importance of having a growth mindset. And I always talk about the second G for me is grit.
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And these are the three GS of the Superhero mistake.
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B
Yeah. And I think so. I think having a powerful mindset, being unstoppable, or just having the ability to go and succeed Whatever success is for you, you have to be growing. Because if you're not growing, then you're backsliding, right? But you also need a level of grit. And I think grit, just like growth, is a muscle. It's something that you need to sharpen through challenge. Because through the challenge, you get all the change that comes from it. I would say that if I'm effective, having an impact on stage, and we all have a stage of our life, whether it's on a physical stage or just going through our day, that I challenge my grit and my ability to persist. I feel like that the most successful people on the planet that having the level of impact that they want to have to go through challenges. And just like the hero's journey that we've talked about many times. And so how I get myself through it, I monitor my self talk because I think that's important. I feel like with a name like quick, you know, you have to be a runner, right? And so I had to be a runner back in school and to be careful of getting speeding tickets and everything else like that. But I remember I was reading a book years ago on preparing for a marathon and one of the chapters again was on the psychology of it. And it said this verbatim, you know, because I'm the memory expert, it said, your brain is like a supercomputer and your self talk is a program it will run. So if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. And I always tell people that. And now I don't think the brain is like a supercomputer. I think it's a weak metaphor for what it is because this is like a living computer that could do so much more and has different capabilities. But I would say that your self talk is important and it is the program that we run. And I always tell people to keep it positive, keep it empowering, because your mind is always eavesdropping on your self talk, right? And you have to be careful what you say to yourself because it's this unconscious command. So I would be very careful, like when I'm. When I get nervous or I feel like I'm. I think some of the most successful people live at the edge of their limits, you know, and they. And they play there also as well. And so whenever I feel in my nervous system, I feel like I can't do it. Then I feel like I really must do it because I feel like how we do anything is how we do everything.
- [14:12]
A
When did you have that realization that you could overcome some of the fears by knowing what your motives were?
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You've had many guests address this, and I really do feel. And congratulations with Mel and Simon. Those videos are like, you know, hundreds of millions of people watch it. And I feel like I was having this conversation. I did a talk in Silicon Valley, and afterwards, Bill Gates comes up to me, and I asked him what superpower he could read One. And he's like, the ability to read faster. And I was like, oh, I could totally help with that. And I believe in reading. And I know you're an avid, avid reader, and we share that commonality, leaders or readers, but we're talking about the future education. And I was taking the approach from adult learning theory and brain science, and he was approaching it from more technology and scale. And somebody who was listening asked the question, saying, is there anything missing? You know, what's missing, absent theory and technology? And we were talking about it, and we came to the conclusion is understanding human motivation. Because motive matters, right? And what drives us. I always tell people that there's a success formula. I subscribe to it. I call it H cubed. That goes from your head to your heart to your hands, especially in the personal development space, or what they teach about goal setting. You could affirm things in your head or think things in your head or visualize things in your head, but if you're not acting with your hands, there's something that's missing, right? There's an incongruency there. And what I tell people is check in with the second H, which is your heart, which is the symbol of emotion, the energy of motion. And so I feel like that's the fuel that fuels the car, that gets you to take action for something. And I do believe what got me through it is figuring out what my why was, right? I don't want people to suffer the way I did. If I could do anything about it, for me, it's like no brain left behind, right? Because I live with that identity for so long. And my message to people, whether it's on stage or on the podcast or anything, is that we are more than what we're demonstrating, that we've been sold this lie that people are taught through school. Like, when I do these demos and I on stage memorize 100 names and words and numbers forwards and backwards, and it appears effortlessly, I always tell people, I don't do this in press. You. I do this to express to you what's really possible. Because the truth is, everyone can do this, too. And so much more apply towards creativity and focus and flow and problem solving and thinking and really overcoming the biggest challenges of their life and maybe even the world. The challenge is we were taught a lie. We were taught a lie that somehow our intelligence, our potential, our learning, our memory somehow is fixed, our creativity is fixed, our thinking is fixed, like our shoe size. And what we've discovered, as you know more about brain science in the past two decades, we've discovered more than the previous 2,000 years. And what we know is that we're grossly underestimating our own capacity to be able to grow, to be able to contribute, to improve our intelligence and our influence and our impact. And I'm really. I want to kind of pull the veil behind and just say, hey, this is about transcending, you know, this is about ending the trance. Ending the trance that you're. That we're not good enough. You know, that we're not smart enough, that we're not this genius and telling the truth. And the truth is, people could. We're faster and we're smarter than we think, and not just to be able to rote memorize things, but be able to really solve significant challenges. And maybe that these challenges that we're going through are the lessons that we need to learn the most. And then some people who learn those lessons feel compelled to be able to share that voice with other people. So it's not just one candle. You know, we just can set things ablaze. You know, when you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery. So you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
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A
So what are some of the key problems that you personally want to solve that you think we face as a society? Like, what are those.
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B
Those major movements for you? So a lot of these conversations you and I, we've had with our mutual friend Peter Diamandis over at xprize. I was at the very early stages of their education literacy prize when they first launched it. And so I think for me, my platform is education. And I feel like that growing up, if anyone who's watching this feels like they're overloaded, overwhelmed, and they can't keep up. I always tell people that I don't think it's, that's completely their fault. It's just we all grew up with a 20th century education that prepared us for a 20th century world, which at the turn of the century was working in factories and farms and assembly line. And our education system was mirrored to that. It was assembly line, one size fits all, cookie cutter approach towards education. Teaching us things about what to learn. Math, history, science, Spanish. But all things we could find online nowadays, right? So what do you need to be able to regurgitate that information for? But it was about what to learn, but not how to learn. And how to think for yourself, how to solve problems, how to be creative. All the things that you can't outsource to automated or technology, or you can't outsource to Asia. Our value in this world is really our creativity because that's not something that's easily outsourced. Our ability to create value, be creators, take our vision and turn them into reality. Take the invisible and make it visible. But where are the classes on that? Right? On how to be able to live your best version of yourself. That's why I love this and the conversations that we have and the conversations that you're bringing out to the world. Because nowadays we live in this. See, here's the thing. I get to work you mentioned with SpaceX and Elon and such and rocket scientists and all these. I mean, think about that. We're living in a world of autonomous electric cars and spaceships that are going to Mars. Our vehicle choice when it comes to learning, it's like we're choosing a horse and buggy. That's our choice. And we wonder why. Wow, this is taking so long. This is so hard. This is so difficult. But it's not our fault. We just weren't prepared for this world that we're living in right now. They say that if Rip Van Winkle, the gentleman who slept for decades of slumber, right, if he woke up today, the only thing he would recognize is our schools. And that's not a slight against teachers. Like, my mother's a school teacher, my aunt is a college professor. I love those individuals because they're some of the most hardworking individuals that I know and I get to train a lot of them. But it's a systemic issue. Just like many challenges, it doesn't grow and it hasn't evolved as much as the rest of the world has. But I love this because right now, classrooms, they don't have four walls. I Mean, how many people are watching this from how many different countries right now? And you never know who's listening on the other side. And that motivates, inspires the heck out of me. Because what if someone right now is watching this on their smart device and they're in the middle of a third world country and they become the next Malala or Elon Musk or what have you? And that's what really juices me. And so education, I feel like a lot of people feel like that when they graduate school, their learning is done. In fact, the two big dips in cognitive performance is usually when people graduate school, and the second one is when they retire from work. So often when people retire their mind, they feel like their body is not too far behind either because of that connection.
- [21:38]
A
So have you thought about what a new education system would look like?
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B
My approach is always been going directly to the student, whoever the student of life happens to be. Now, I know in terms of curriculum what I would change just because I wouldn't focus so much on, you know, on dates. I think it's good to be well read because I think that perspective is really important. But I would focus more on functional, usable tools that would help people excel in today's day and age. You know, the ability to create the. Be able to think differently, leadership skills, the ability to work and manage teams, collaboration tools. I think all those would be very important. I mean, any of the learning methodologies that we publish on how to focus and how to concentrate. The reason I focus on memory a lot, even though there's a lot of information online, because people are like, oh, why? Why do I need to memorize all this stuff if it's available online? And that's a valid point. There's two reasons I would say. Number one, I feel like because people aren't memorizing things, they're losing their ability to remember things because they're outsourcing their brains to their smart devices, right? I mean, everything is kept here so they don't have to be able to keep it here. And the challenge is you're. I believe that the mind is more like a muscle as opposed to a supercomputer that's use it or lose it grows stronger with use, but a lot of people aren't using it as much as they used to. And so because think about it. Before technology, how would you have to remember personal history and all your lessons? You would pass it around like, you know, share it over with stories like this. And that's why I love. I love this kind of context, there'd be a fire here and we'd be sharing this and it'd be part of like who we are. And I feel people are losing that ability. So I think storytelling is so important to be able to teach. Right. Interpersonal skills. We know that IQ is kind of. It's erroneous, right? This idea where you have a number and it's yours for the rest of your life and it's fixed and it can't move and it accurately describes your value in society. I think that's flawed. I think that we have multiple intelligences. So generally in the United States, we reinforce two kinds of intelligence. It's like verbal, linguistic and mathematical. Like growing up, that was like the SATs, it was like verbal and math, right? And if you're not good at either one of them, it's like, hey, that determines whether or not you go to a. To school and everything else like that. But what about like interpersonal skills? I mean, that's gotta be at least as important to be able. Your ability to connect with individuals like what you have in spades. What about like, besides interpersonal skills, what about intrapersonal skill? Like just self awareness? Because I, you know, as Gary Vee talks about, I think self awareness is a superpower, like awareness of yourself, like your own condition and what motivates you, what drives you, your own beliefs, identity, your own.
- [24:14]
A
Do you think that can be cultivated?
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B
I feel like I think so. I do believe in a combination of nature and nurture. I do believe people are born with a certain level of talent. But as the. As you know, it's cliche, but it's also true that hard work will be talent if talent doesn't work hard. Right. So I do believe you could refine and train this. I think when it comes to children that it's harder to model and manage behavior like getting them to do something or stop doing something. But I think what we could do because of children growing up, they're incredibly, you know, they have their mirror neurons and they're always their imit. They learn through imitation and such. I feel like that they'll. It's what's easier with modeling or being good role model for kids. And this goes for coaching or any kind of, you know, relationship with a human being is really to be an example. And really instead of model of trying to manage certain, you know, micro behaviors, like the thousands and hundreds and thousands of different behaviors that your team has or your children have, I would say that it's be better to really focus on Communicating like the values, right?
- [25:18]
A
You said that behavior is belief driven. Is that your, Is that what you mean? Like focus on giving them the belief system.
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B
The belief system and the values. Like I feel like in order people to transcend, to be able to end the trance, right, that we talked about earlier, that a lot of people are just trying to change a lot of times. Like I just did a podcast on habits, right? How to be able to adopt new habits and also delete and get rid of. Of break bad habits, right? And so a lot of people always want to make it usually make a change on behavior. They want to get themselves to work out, they want to get themselves to meditate, they want to get themselves to read more each day. They want to get themselves to X, right? Or they want to stop some behavior. They want to stop smoking, they want to stop eating this food. They want to stop. I always tell people, stop checking your phone the first hour of the day.
- [26:00]
A
I love that.
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B
And I just, that's like sacred time for me, you know, because for me I think that if you want to be an elite mental performer or real life superhero, you don't want to start out by checking the phone. We talked about this in the past because you're training yourself to be, be reactive, right? You're getting your dopamine, you're frying your nervous system with all these likes, shares, comments and everything else like that that you've said.
- [26:21]
A
If I'm not mistaken, you sell your sovereignty.
- [26:23]
B
We do.
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A
If you start by checking your phone, I love that so much because you're
- [26:27]
B
reacting and firefighting to everyone's like, well, everything everyone wants. So you're not really setting, you're not living, you know, it's. You've heard this many times, right? If you want to, you, you win the first hour of the day to win. The rest you know, when you win, win the day, right? And so anything you want to stop. So let's say you want to stop checking your phone right in the morning. Then there's certain, like that's a behavior, right? But there's so many other elements to be able to change because most behaviors don't stick, right? And so like when I'm thinking about when I want to transform or transcend or make a real positive change, I'm looking at all the other areas of ourself. So I'm looking at for example, our environment. Are people setting up their environment to win at a. No. So change doesn't just happen at this level of behavior, but what you have to change the Environment. So for example, if you want to stop eating a certain food, it helps to be able to have not that, not have that food in your home, right? So you change the environment. If you want to read more, it helps to help set up your environment where you have the books readily available where you're going to read it because they perform. You know, how I, how I approach habit change is this area of motivation and this trigger, right? You want to trigger it to help remind you to do the behavior, right? So are you setting up the environment in a way that triggers the behavior that you want? But not only the environment is like the when and the where, but it's also behavior is also the capabilities. Because a lot of people want to change a behavior, but they're not training in the abilities. What I love a lot about your work and your passion is the area of be able to ability those acquisition new abilities for yourself and also that could also benefit the rest of the world. But most people aren't training those habits and those capabilities. But also another level of change that we need to address. Let's say someone's watching this and they have something they want to change and it's not sticking, then maybe it's not, it's the environment. Maybe you could check about your habits, but maybe it's your beliefs and your values. Some people will not get themselves to read every day because they don't value reading every single day, right? Some people won't. Let's say the behavior they want to change is. You know, we did a podcast on how to remember names. I could teach them step by step on how to remember the name of most people that they meet. Yet they won't do it because they don't value it or because that's not important to them or they don't believe that they can, right? Just like we talked about earlier, saying your brain is like a supercomputer and you know your self talk as a programmer runs. If you tell yourself not go to remember your names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. They don't have a belief that enables that. So when I say all behavior is belief driven. If you want to do this behavior, whatever it is, journal whatever it is, then you need a belief that allows that to happen because that's the program that allows.
- [28:54]
A
So how do you get that belief? Because you're going to feel like you're faking it, right? That's where most people stop, right? They think, okay, I Get it? I hear what Jim is saying, that if I am able to shift my belief, then I can get a different, different behavior. But I don't believe it. So now I'm just sort of faking it. How do you help people overcome that?
- [29:11]
B
Right? And so you, I mean, so some people approach it like they, you know, there's quote where they fake it till they make it, right? So my thing with belief is like when I do trainings in groups or online, my favorite way of changing a belief is getting them to do something they never thought they could do because it opens up another possibility.
- [29:30]
A
Like what?
- [29:31]
B
So, so for example, in 1954, Roger Bannister, he broke the four minute mile, right? Which is amazing. Throughout human history, nobody could run a mile in less than four minutes. Now, if you look into it, how he was able to do it is he would visualize himself crossing the finish line, looking at the clock and it says 359. Because he knew that success is an inside out process, that first it had to happen in here in order for happening out there. Dr. Wayne Dyer has a famous phrase where it's not, oh, I'll believe it when I see it. It's like, I'll see it when I believe it. Because it's the opposite, right? And so I always like modeling the outliers where most people kind of just like, kind of dismiss them. I was like, well, what's going on there that allows this person to get this kind of result, right? And so with Roger Bannister, he saw it in here, be able to produce it outside, just like any innovator or inventor or writer or any creator, Right? But what was interesting is after that would happen, nobody could do it from the beginning of humanity, all of a sudden, one person does it. What happens after that?
- [30:31]
A
Everybody.
- [30:32]
B
Yeah, everyone starts doing it. And so that's the thing. Now what happened? Was there a big change that year in, you know, training methodology and nutrition or. No, it was a change of belief. Right? Because the belief back then was if you ran a mile in less than four minutes, not only would you die, it was your heart would explode in your chest. And like, think about like that would. And I'm a runner, right? That would keep me not just running. That wouldn't keep me from running a four minute, that would keep me from run, period. Right? And so my thing is like, that was a change of a reference. I was just that shook up a belief. So my goal with people when it comes to learning is get themselves to do something they never thought they could do. And then it opens up another possibility. It literally opens up their nervous system for something. What else could be possible? Now I would also say that it all plays together where it's not easy necessarily just to change a belief overnight. Now, that could be a belief because it's like a meta belief about what beliefs are. But people, there's technologies like inception, right? Like a dream of a dream or a dream. But I do believe that we have more power to influence our thoughts and our beliefs. And so there are a lot of tools and techniques out there that are resources. Like when I grew up, we didn't have any. We had no money, right. I had no education because I was a very learning challenge. I didn't know anybody, right? So I feel like it's not when people. That's where they'll go, though. When there's a gap, Stop. Gap between where they are and where they want to be. They'll say, oh, I don't have the money or I don't have the education, or I don't have the intelligence, I don't have the network or anything else like that. And what, you know, for all incredible success you've had and the value you've created for the world is that it's not about resources, right? Because we know a lot of people who didn't have any resources that were able to impact the world. It's about our internal resources. And what I'm saying is optimizing our environment, optimizing our behaviors, our capabilities, our beliefs and our values and our identity, right? At the highest level, our identity. Because you can't just change your belief or your values or your behavior, even if you don't believe you're that kind of person. You know, that's why I kind of always quote to the superhero mythos, because I want people to claim that identity. I call it the superhero you. That version of ourselves that we're not waiting for Superman or Batman or Wonder Woman. It's like, you are Wonder Woman, you are Batman, you are Superman. It's just we have to commit ourselves to be able to unleashing that dude.
- [32:50]
A
I'm a huge believer in identity driving behaviors. I have a hard time explaining to people, though, how to adopt a new identity. How do you. How have you done it in your own life? I think that's the best.
- [33:03]
B
I mean, my identity. I mean, obviously this is a work in progress, right? I would say that I would start with the. They call it the two smallest world words in the English language, but they're their two most powerful words in the English language. It's I am, right? I am. Because whatever you put after that determines your destination or your destiny. Right? And I think your identity is who you believe you are. And I feel like when we're talking about playing to the edge of our limits and really playing there and living in that place where we're stretching, you know, I do believe and I get inspired every time I see your insta story. You're like, it's like 4:30 and you're working out, you're doing your work, but that's who you are, right? You don't have to fight it because you can't imagine yourself not doing that. And that's the level of that I. That I think is what's most important. So I would think about going through an exercise and I've done this with friends, I've had them sit or in groups. We do these conferences and such. And I find I have people pair up with someone they don't know and what they're going to do is they're going to do an exercise. Exercise I am. And they're going to talk a bit. They're literally going to fill in the blanks for three minutes until I call time. So you have to go like, and you could do this right now. Like, if you were to fill in I am blank, like I would say, you know, I am a student, I am a teacher, I am a son, I'm a, you know, all this and. But eventually I'll get to a point where I don't know what else to say. And that's what the real interesting answers come out of. Right? Because it's a great way for networking and knowing somebody else, but it also shows us this really big tapestry of our life to the point that we've gotten to right now where we could. I relate to these aspects of ourselves and I think it's a nice exercise when we talk about self awareness, being a superpower, really knowing who we think we are. Because if we don't believe that we are a public speaker or we're a great parent or we're a great learner or genius, then we'll never be able to reach our full potential because that will always be the ceiling that we bump up against. And also when I'm talking to individuals and I'm interviewing them on our podcast or just talking to individuals like this, I would be thinking about especially high performers because I think that genius leaves clues and I believe that it can be replicated if you're willing to Put in the work and the learning and the discipline to be able to do that, then I want to know, really, I want to know their beliefs, I want to know what they value. Because if I don't know that, if I'm just working on step by step hacks and everything else, it won't stick because it's missing a huge part. So I want to model like their behaviors, their values, their beliefs, and also who they think they are that allows them to do those, accomplish those amazing things in their life.
- [35:28]
A
And what are some of the clues that genius leaves?
- [35:30]
B
So it's interesting when I'm talking about the, these levels of change, right? The identity level is the who, right? You know, all the five W's and the H we learned back in school. The identity is who somebody is. When we're talking about beliefs and values, that's the why, why they do what they do. When we're talking about capabilities, that's the how, right? That's the habit, right? The skill acquisition. When we're talking, the behavior, that's the what, the what they're doing, right? And then when we're talking about environment, that's really the where and the when, right? So I'm going to always going back with I to want to create change, create a new habit, create a new level of learning for somebody. I'm addressing those different levels and if I, if I ignore one with somebody else or myself, then it's not going to stick, right? Because you're not going to have that congruency where it's going to affect where it becomes second nature. And so going back to this, I think if I'm modeling genius and genius leaves clues, I'm thinking about, okay, where are they and when are they doing these things? So certain people are early birds, some people are night owls. So I could teach people, like I teach people how to read one book a week. I really think leaders are readers that in order to stay competitive in today's day and age, if somebody has decades of experience and they put it into a book and you can sit down and read that in a few days, download decades into days. I mean, I'm preaching to choir for everyone that's watching, but that's a superpower, right? That's a huge advantage. And so I'm thinking about, but some people, when I'm telling them to practice and I get These results in 30, you know, about four or five weeks where it's permanent, where they can read 300% faster with the same or better comprehension, essentially read something in 20 minutes. It takes. Normally takes normal people an hour. But the reason why, but you have to practice. But some people will practice and at inopportune times of the day and they won't get the same results. So part of it is self awareness, knowing what they call your chronotype. When's the optimal time to do this? Depending on your body type, there's certain times of the day better to work out. There's better times a day to be able to make love. There are better times of the day to be able to read, to check email, to ask for a raise. So I would think about like if geniuses found their element, their sweet spot and they set up their routines and their rituals throughout the day to be able to align with their time when they're most productive, right. If they, if they don't have a lot of energy in the morning, working out is probably not as good as doing some other time. So the when and the where and setting up your environment for success because all your triggers are there that allow them. So I think geniuses set themselves up. So for example, they have their laptop, but they only use their laptop for work. And it's anchored, that's part of their environment. It's anchored to get them into flow states to be able to write or be productive. They don't use their laptop to watch binge on Netflix. Right. They have a very. They have an iPad that they use when they do that because. Because that's the state that they want to anchor for that. And they don't use that iPad to do work. You know, setting up your environment like your bedroom. Like we just did a whole episode on sleep hacks and how to optimize your sleep. Cause that's a big personal challenge for me for many years. Cause I had suffered from sleep apnea. It was a breathing disorder. I stopped breathing 200 times a night for at least 10 seconds, which is the equivalent of somebody coming in and choking and suffocating you 200 times a night. And so I would actually reason why I'm so adamant about productivity and learning hacks is because for the longest time, for literally five years straight, and you know this, I've sleep. Slept about 90 minutes to two hours a night total. And you know how you feel when you get like one bad night of sleep and how like where your focus is, your energy level and your. How I get these horrible migraines and it's forced me to double down in my practices, you know, in terms of like I have a limited amount of time I have to focus on the things that really matter, resources and stuff. But anyway, going back to like my bedroom is sacred space, right? It's. I don't do work in there. I keep it because that's my trigger to be able to rest, go into parasympathetic space. I set up my environment so I have my blackout curtains. I'm at my grounding pad. So it's to optimize my restful sleep that I do get. So environment. So genius leaves clues. They set up genius environments for themselves. And then the behaviors most people know because they're intuitive, you know, these people are, are investing themselves. There's. They're investing in self care. I always tell people that self love and self care is not selfish. A lot of people, you know, they're there for their friends and their family and their clients and everybody else, but they're not refilling their, their cup. So I think that we have to be, you know, grow givers. Meaning we grow so we have more to give to other people, so we have more impact with other individuals. So the behaviors are reading each day and putting together your to do list. And I think having your not to do list is so important. Having been sleep deprived for so many years. And I think a lot of people, I'm super sensitized to it, but I think one of the success rituals people should have is just going through and keeping a consistent not to do list. And I think the most successful genius level individuals, one of the clues that they leave is their not to do list is bigger than their to do list. Right? They don't check their phone in the morning. They don't take in, you know, everything is hell yes or it's hell no. Right? That's their filter system. They don't, you know, they say no to good. So they say yes. Yes to great. So the behaviors, then you have the habits which. And then you have the beliefs and the values and beliefs and the values. You know, because I watch this is one of the reasons why I watch your show because I'm just hearing all the time you're listening to these amazing beliefs and value from achievers in all, every area. I mean, it's amazing. Amazing. I mean, you have Wyclef there and like Melon, you have all these amazing individuals. But you see that there's a pattern that's there, right? And there's an art and, but there's a science to it there and there's an art to it and how they express themselves. And then I also do Believe that some of those successful geniuses. And I say geniuses, not just. I'm not talking about iq, right? I'm talking about an incredible, you know, artist. I'm talking about an athlete. I'm talking about an advocate, you know, in some area is they haven't. They're. They're clear about their identity, about who they are and who they are to the world. And so. But I know what they do commit is they do the work, and they're committed to lifelong learning. And I feel like that learning. I always tell people, and we had this conversation that if knowledge is power, then learning is your superpower. And I think it's a superpower that we all have. It's just now we're not taught. Like, recently we had Quincy Jones in our audience, and I had to pull him on stage, right? And I was just like. I was like, I have to ask you, we are the world and Michael Jackson and Oprah, like, you know, what did you. How did you overcome these challenges that, you know, these problems that you had to be able to create this, you know, this legacy? And he looked at me, he's like, jim, he's like, I don't have any problems. I'm like, what do you mean? I'm like, you're 84. You have no problems. And she's like, no, I have puzzles. And I was like, wow. Like, that little shift of vocabulary changed everything for me. Yeah, because puzzles are like riddles. You could solve them. Right. There's answers for it. And it was a change of perspective. And that was the thing about growing up with superheroes. Reading these comic books late at night when I was so impress is, for me, a superhero more than anything, represents hope. Do you know what I mean? That one person can make a difference. And a lot of superheroes go through a lot of challenges, right? When you think about the most popular superheroes, they're all orphans, like Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Spider Man. They all lost their parents, and they all threw these big challenges. But through it, they found their dharma. They found their mission. And I find that if someone's watching this and they haven't found it quite yet, maybe I have a belief that their mission and that people's mission, their purpose and their patent is looking for them also. But most of us aren't sensitized to it because it's coming in different forms, and we're not open to it as much. And so my thing when it comes to success rituals and high performance and making an impact is that we all have that sovereignty, we all have that power. And whenever we put it out there and give it out to somebody else, like we're a thermometer. The metaphor I always talk about, it's like we're either thermometers or we're thermostats. And a thermometer, you think about the functionality of it, it just reflects what the environment is giving it. It just reflects the temperature and stuff. But a thermostat is different. It sets a standard, it sets a goal, it sets a vision. And the environment changes along with it. And I feel like our happiness, our joy, our level of fulfillment, our success is all dependent on where we put the locus of control. And I feel like we have more power than we realize in these cases. And it's hard because we have to fight. We have to fight marketing. That's always telling us about all the things that are going on in the world. But we live in an abundant universe, right? I mean, we talk about the Matrix, you know, which pill people are going to take, and that determines everything. And every single morning you determine what color pill you're going to take.
- [43:29]
A
I have to say it is fascinating to watch you deal with the sleep issue because going into it, I wondered how your beliefs were going to play, right? So a lot of times the belief will kick in. And when the problem is solved relatively easily, the belief is intact and everything is right with the universe. But dude, you had to push for years and years and years. Like you were saying 400 things that you tried to overcome that. How did you stay focused, committed? Like how do you push through the dark times? That's really my question because your entire life is like a story of grit and pushing through like the darkest of times.
- [44:15]
B
And I would say what keeps me going is I have a belief that everything can get better. Like that's my self talk. When it comes down to what my primary belief is, is I feel that things could get better because otherwise if I didn't, then I would just give up, right? And I have too many examples of friends and family and just people I don't know which are just friends of my mind that have superseded much more difficult situations than I have. The other thing it's helped me me to do is really focus on the rituals and the routines, the habits, the abilities that really matter. You know, the 8020 rule. Because when I have a certain amount of energy, I can only do a certain amount of things and I want, I need to get more back and I'm still doing the job. Quote unquote of most, you know, three or four people, you know, going on stage and traveling to Dubai, you know, like the kind of things that we do. But it forces me to focus on the things that's going to get maximum return. And you know, and I think we do teach the things that we need to learn the most. I think the best teachers are the best students. And I know I'm going through this like I had surgery recently to correct this. And so my sleep has jumped up from 90 minutes in two hours to about four hours, which doesn't sound like a lot. It's not perfect, but it's progress. And that's my standard. Like I'm just, I'm never looking for perfection because I don't think that that standard exists. I'm just looking to make incremental progress. You know, when I wake up in the morning, I have my daily routine and it's so fine tuned because, because I think a lot of people suffer from decision making fatigue. Right. And this is very strong research saying that you could only make a certain amount of good decisions a day and after that is spent, you can't anymore. And that's really been fine tuned in the medical field with surgeons and such in terms of seeing their, you know, where they're making their errors and stuff with early on in the day or later in their days and stuff like that. But we all as entrepreneurs or as employees and executives or as parents and we all can make a certain amount of decisions. And that's why, you know, people like Mark Zuckerberg or Tony Hsieh, they wear the same T shirts and sweatshirts all the time because they don't want to spend, you know, use up one of their decisions thinking, oh, what am I going to wear today? Right, right. And so my, my goal is to streamline my, my life, put the routines the first hour of the day and the last hour of the day, I really micromanage to the point where it's habitual, I don't even have to think about it. And then because those are the times of the day where I could really have the most impact because later on in the middle of the day, you know, team members need this, there's firefighting, this client needs that. But the first hour, the last hour, I really want to control. So all this really helped develop grit and resilience in my body so I could have the ability to persevere. And also I stand guard to my brain all the time. What goes in, you know, I don't watch like a lot of the negative news and all the market. I really focus like, you know, I watch and I listen to your show and maybe a handful of little of things I read each day because I need to keep it positive. I want hope and I'm looking for help. I'm looking for inspiration and also instruction.
- [47:06]
A
So before I ask the last question, where can these guys find you online?
- [47:11]
B
The best place is actually our podcast is Kwik Brain K W I K Brain. That's really my last name. I didn't change it to do what I did, my father's name, my grandfather's name. But this is a new venture for us. We publish a couple episodes a week and it's really. Every episode is less than 20 minutes. It's to be able to say that these are brain hacks for busy people who want to learn faster and achieve more. Everything from read a book a week to remember people's names to my top 10 favorite brain foods to how to eliminate or add new habits. That's the best place people go to quickbrain.com and they could join a private Facebook group there and post questions for future episodes and also download free. We give them $100 worth of brain training as as a gift or any social media. You know, I love our social media. Anything imquick on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
- [48:00]
A
Nice. All right. What's the impact that you want to have on the world?
- [48:04]
B
What is the impact I want to have on the world? So our team doesn't. We're small in people, but we're really big on purpose. Like yourself. We don't measure it in billions of dollars, but billions of brains really light me up, you know? You know, billions of brains and minds coming online, you know, being their best version of themselves. That's really, really, that's really the mission is to change people's personal education system and how people fall in love with their brains again. You know, I think that if people want greater that your brain directly controls your, your, your levels of intelligence, your level of influence, confidence with people, your level of income, and also your level of impact. So we want to, we want billions of brains to come online and create a world collectively that the future generations could really thrive in.
- [48:58]
A
I like it. Yeah, brother, thank you so much for
- [49:00]
B
coming on the show, man.
- [49:02]
A
Amazing. Guys. This is somebody who has a degree of being a tactician that you have to see to believe. To know that he started out truly with a learning disability and didn't just claw his way back to normal, becomes one of the most world recognized experts in the field of cognitive improvement. It's literally one of the most amazing examples of grit, perseverance, and a strong mission of knowing why he's doing what he's doing and wanting to give back and using that desire to help other people as a way to push through the dark times. And man, like this poor guy, the number of times that he's had to redouble down, come back to his belief system and continue to push through. When he and I first met, he was really at the beginning of his journey of struggling with the sleep problem and knowing him socially first and then hearing the private struggle that he was in. It was a really interesting time to ask how does this play out? Is this somebody that really is going to walk the walk and keep pushing and do the 400 things that it takes to actually see incremental improvement? Or is this going to be somebody that ultimately taps out and that belief ends up getting choked just by the unrelenting nature of the problem? And to see him continue to push for years and years and really come out the other side and be in a position where he's able to, through the things that he believes, through his behaviors, through his identity, continue to push through, even when I think the vast majority of the world would give up is just speaks to why he's been successful in this arena for so long and at such a level. It's absolutely incredible to spend time with you, man. Thank you so much for coming. Coming on guys. Check him out. You won't regret it. And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Hey everybody, thanks so much for joining us for another episode of Impact Theory. If this content is adding value to your life, our one ask is that you go to itunes and stitcher and rate and review. Not only does that help us, if
- [51:13]
B
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