So many of us have so much on our mind,
we're often overwhelmed
with how much there is to do
at any given moment, and how
much there is to drive forward.
So often entrepreneurs and business owners
are looking for that mental edge
to gain the kind of mental clarity
that can give them an
edge on their performance.
Today, we're we're at the
beautiful Mindvalley headquarters
in Kuala Lumpur, and I'm bringing you
the world's leading memory
and brain coach, Mr. Jim Kwik.
Now Jim works for everybody from Elon Musk
through to Will Smith, through
to entrepreneurs and CEOs,
any person looking to achieve an edge
through developing
their mental capacities,
this man is an absolute genius
at helping them drive that forward.
Jim, thank you so much for joining us.
- Jack, thank you so much for having me,
I'm excited about doing this with you.
- Yeah, vice versa,
we were having a really
engaging conversation yesterday,
and I said, "Jim, man,
"I've gotta get you in front of a camera,
"we've gotta have this
conversation for our audience."
- No, that's good, thank you,
thank you for everyone who's joining us.
- We appreciate it.
Now, mate, so much of
your brilliance, I think,
is captured in your own personal story.
- Yeah.
- So before we get into it,
why don't we start there?
- Well, so a lot of people on stage,
they see me do these mental feats,
where I'll memorise a hundred
people's names in an audience,
which is a very valuable
business skill in itself,
or they'll challenge me to
memorise a hundred random words,
or a hundred digit number,
and I'll memorise it
forwards and backwards,
and people can see these videos online,
but I always tell people I
don't do this to impress you,
I do this to express to
you what's really possible,
because the truth is every single person
who's watching this could do that,
and so much more, and I know this because
I grew up with learning difficulties.
A lot of people don't know,
but at the age of five,
I had a very bad accident,
head trauma, brain injury,
and I had learning challenges.
So I had very bad focus,
a very bad memory,
it took me an extra three
or four years just to learn
how to read, and I
really really struggled.
And because I went
through the struggle phase
for about a decade and a
half, all through school,
I learned how to compensate.
I learned how to get better,
and I went from below normal,
to normal, to many people say
above normal, highly normal,
where now I can do these amazing things,
to be able to drive the things
that are important in our daily lives
and now I have a passion and a mission
to help people around the world
be faster, smarter, and better.
They say we use about 10%
of our brain's potential,
and I love working with individuals,
especially entrepreneurs,
because I think they're
the modern day superheroes.
They're creating jobs, and
opportunities, solving problems,
to be able to get more done in less time,
to be able to catch up,
keep up, and get ahead,
and really, as you said,
get a mental advantage.
Because how do you do that nowadays?
Because in today's economy,
today's knowledge economy,
knowledge is not only power, it's profit.
It's the faster you can learn,
the faster you can earn.
In fact, memory will make you money,
because I believe two of the
most costly words in business
are "I forgot."
"I forgot to do it,"
"I forgot to bring it,"
"I forgot what to say,"
"I forgot that conversation,"
"I forgot that presentation,"
"I forgot that meeting,"
"I forgot that person's name."
Every single time you have a memory lapse,
time is lost, opportunity is
lost, relationships are hurt,
money is potentially lost.
You could kill a sale
just by calling somebody
by the wrong name,
or quoting a different number.
And the opposite is also true.
When you could walk into
a room, meet 20 strangers,
and leave saying goodbye
using their names,
every single one by name,
who do they all remember?
They all remember you.
And so from speed reading,
to focus, to concentration.
I just got back from, I was in
Melbourne, and we were there,
had the tennis open there,
and everybody has the highest
performers in the world
have coaches, right?
And this is great, because entrepreneurs,
they need a coach, right?
And singers have a voice coach,
and business people have a business coach,
actors have acting coaches,
athletes have personal trainers.
And so I'm kind of like
a mental coach, of sorts,
a brain coach.
- And Jim, you really do work
with the best people in the
world, as you just mentioned,
you've come from the Australian open,
and you work with people like Elon Musk,
and all sorts of celebrities
and different athletes.
You and Elon bonded over a
particular common experience,
talk to us about that.
- Yeah, I think a lot of people,
you create relationships, right?
The business is not just what
you know, it's who you know,
and also who knows you, also as well.
And so that's why I think
having a great memory
is very important, it serves you,
because it allows you to bond,
because people don't
care how much you know
until they know how much you care.
And how are you gonna show them
you're gonna care for their
future, their business,
their finances, their family,
whatever it is you have to offer them
if you don't care enough
just to remember things like their name?
In the case of Elon, we
were both an event together,
we were speaking, we had
some casual time together,
and when we were talking
about the memory training,
he's actually, he's got an
extraordinary memory already.
He has the ability to do what I do,
and a lot of my students do,
where we could shuffle a deck of cards
and go through it and memorise the order,
and fun things like that.
So he has some training in that area,
and we actually bonded
over science fiction.
We're both big, avid
readers of science fiction,
and you can imagine with him,
he's sending rocket ships up to Mars,
and doing all those amazing things.
He's taking science fiction
and making science fact, if you will.
But that's where we made the connection,
and he invited me to come to SpaceX,
which I was a big fan of, obviously,
I'm a big fan of what he's doing
in terms of the evolutionary application
of taking rocket ships and
going out to space and such,
and I got to work with him
and his rocket scientists.
And they, just like everybody
who's here right now,
entrepreneurs, I think a lot of people
who are moving things forward,
one of the things that hold them back
is this thing called information overload.
Information overwhelm.
There's too much
information, too little time.
I mean, how many emails do you get a day?
- Yeah.
- How many books do you have on your shelf
that you haven't yet read?
- Yeah.
- And so we're drowning in information,
it's like we're taking a sip
or water out of a fire hose.
So what I do with entrepreneurs like that
is I help them to be able to read faster,
to improve their focus, to be
able to absorb information.
And not just absorb it, but
understand that information.
Not skim, scan, and skip words,
but really understand those
things, and be able to apply it.
Because it's a misnomer
that knowledge is power.
Knowledge is not power, knowledge
really is potential power.
- Yeah.
- As you know, it only becomes
power when we apply it.
- Yeah.
- The most people have trouble
because there's just too
much to keep track of.
And the other challenge I find
that entrepreneurs are suffering from,
let's say number one, Superville,
I like to talk about super powers,
one of the reasons why is I grew up
with learning difficulties
from this head injury,
and it took me an extra three
years to learn how to read.
I taught myself how to read
by reading comic books late at night,
and something about the
illustrations, and good versus evil,
and one person can make a difference,
you know, hope, help,
brought the words to life.
But I talk about it because
I think entrepreneurs
are modern day super heroes.
I mean think about it.
A superhero is somebody
who has discovered their super power,
they have developed it in a way,
and I'm not talking about
leaping tall buildings
and shooting lasers out of your eyes,
I'm talking about real
modern day super powers.
Their unique abilities, their talents,
their unique strengths, if you will.
But just having a super power
doesn't make you a super hero.
You have to use that super power for good.
You have to make an impact,
you have to be able to
share that super power
to make a difference.
So it's not just about making a dollar,
it's also about making a difference.
Not just your income,
but your impact, right?
And so when we're talking
about super heroes,
on the other side, the
size of the super hero
is based on the size of the super villain.
And today, modern day super villains,
I'll say there are three of them
that didn't affect previous generations
because of technology.
There's digital overload,
we're drowning in information
and we're starving for practical wisdom.
Number two is digital distraction.
What entrepreneur doesn't
suffer from entrepreneurial ADD?
And the next flashing lights
is silver object, right?
And so you read a page in
a book, you get to the end,
you just forget what you just read,
because your mind is just multi tasking,
and it can't concentrate.
So we live in a world
full of distractions,
so how do you maintain your focus?
Because nothing of value has been created
by any entrepreneur or
anybody else without focus.
And then the third super
villain, besides overload,
besides distraction, is
something, it's a new health term,
it's called digital dementia.
Have you heard about this?
- No, but it sounds true.
- It is.
In health care, doctors
are talking about this now,
it's the idea where we're
outsourcing our brains
to our smart devices, to our phones.
- Wow, wow.
- And it's keeping all the data,
keeping all your schedules,
keeping all the phone numbers,
keeping all your to-dos,
all doing simple math,
- Yeah, yeah.
- And your brain is like a muscle,
and it grows stronger with use.
But it's use it or lose it.
And so people are finding
they're more forgetful,
not that you wanna
memorise 500 phone numbers,
nobody wants to do that, including myself.
- Yeah.
- But we've lost the ability
to memorise one phone number.
- Yeah.
- Or a passcode, or a pin number,
or "What number was my hotel room?"
Or "Where did I park the car?"
- Yeah.
- And again, all those
memory lapses add up,
and it costs you time,
frustration, opportunity.
- Jim, one of the things we
were talking about yesterday,
which I found fascinating,
is that you were talking
about one's beliefs
about whether they have
- Yeah.
a good or a bad memory--
- Yeah.
- Will actually affect their memory,
and that we have so much more control
over our intellectual capabilities
than what we're led to believe.
- Yeah, I got a lot out
of your presentation,
I know we were speaking on
the stage yesterday together,
and when you were talking about
these questions that people ask,
I believe questions are the answer.
And a lot of questions really reveal
what limitations people have.
For example, people come
to me all the time and say,
"I have a horrible memory,
I'm getting too old."
Or, "This runs in my family," or whatever.
And here's the thing.
If you fight for your
limitations, you get to keep them.
- Yeah.
- If you argue for your
limits, you get to keep them.
And a lot of entrepreneurs
are not different.
We have these limitations,
this learned helplessness,
and it helps...
You know, we learn best through,
also, through metaphors.
Understanding things the way we do,
we connect something to
what we already know.
So, for example, the metaphor
I have for the beliefs
has to do with a thermometer
and a thermostat.
Like, you think about
what a thermometer does,
a thermometer, the
functionality of a thermometer,
it reacts to the
environment, it just reflects
what the environment is
giving it, nothing else.
But a thermostat is completely different.
A thermostat sets a
standard, it sets a vision,
it sets a goal, and what
happens to the environment,
it raises up, so it reacts at it.
- Wow.
- And so really, I feel
entrepreneurs are thermostats.
- I like that.
- Because they have a
vision, they have a goal,
and then they affect the economy,
they affect their world around it,
as opposed to, at all times, to be honest,
we're all thermometers,
we react to the weather,
we react to how our clients treat us,
but to the degree we
wanna feel successful,
to the degree and actually feel fulfilled,
and peace of mind, and confident,
is to the degree we know
that the location of
control is inside, right?
That we determine what things are.
- And so talk to us about how our beliefs
can actually affect our
intellectual capabilities,
like memory, for example.
- Completely.
And so here's what happens.
The example that we talked about earlier
is like Roger Bannister.
- Yeah.
In 1954, he's famous for
breaking the four minute mile.
Throughout human history,
nobody can run a mile in
less than four minutes,
because the belief,
going back to the belief,
the belief that back
then was the human heart
wasn't capable of running
a sub four minute mile.
And what would happen is,
if you ran a mile in
less than four minutes,
your heart would explode in
your chest, and you would die.
(laughs)
Now I'm a runner.
With a name like Kwik, I had
to be a runner back in school,
it's a lot of pressure when
your name is Kwik, right?
I had to teach speed
reading, and speed recall.
But here's the thing.
It wouldn't keep me from
running a four minute mile,
it would keep me from running period,
if I believed my heart
would explode in my chest.
- Yeah.
- But Roger Bannister
was able to break the four minute mile,
and if you read about how he did it,
it was through physical training,
but it was also mental training,
because you were mentioning
the Australian Open,
it's just the best athletes,
they don't just do physical conditioning,
they do mental conditioning.
It's not just about
their physical fitness,
it's about their mental fitness.
- Yeah.
- They want to be sharper,
faster, stronger up here.
- Yeah.
- And so he would actually, he
would imagine himself racing,
and crossing the finish line,
and looking at the clock,
and in his imagination, it says 3:59,
because he's a thermostat.
He knows what entrepreneurs know.
You have to take the
invisible in your mind,
and make it visible out there.
That it's not like, "Oh, I'll
believe it when I see it."
It's the opposite.
"I'll see it when I believe it."
"I'll see it out here when
I believe it in here."
And to illustrate how powerful belief is,
nobody could do it for all that time,
one person does it,
what happens after that?
Dozens of people start
breaking a four minute mile
within the next few years.
Now is there a big advancement
in shoe technology,
training methodology,
supplementation nutrition?
No.
What was the change?
It was a change in belief, right?
Because they shattered the belief.
That's why I do these
demonstrations on stage,
where I memorise all these
things, because people like,
"Oh wow, I didn't know that was possible.
"What else is possible in my life?"
And so belief, this is the
word people want to remember,
and they can write this down,
all behaviour us belief driven.
All behaviour is belief driven.
Henry Ford said, "If you believe you can,
"or you believe you can't,
either way, you're right."
If you believe you can,
or you believe you can't,
either way, you're right.
And the right place to
start is in your self talk.
You wanna kill those
ANTs, ANTs, kill ANTs.
Automatic negative thoughts.
That self talk that we have,
that we're not good enough,
we're not smart enough,
we're not worth it.
Whatever it is, you always
have to monitor your self talk,
entrepreneurs, because your
mind is always eavesdropping
on your self talk.
Your mind is always
eavesdropping on your self talk.
So you want to keep it positive,
you want to keep it empowering.
- And we do have sort of
hypnosis of disempowerment--
- Yeah.
- when it comes to what
we're capable of, don't we?
- In terms of the culture
that we live within--
- Yeah.
- And the messages that we're
given, it's kind of like,
your brain is your brain,
and that's what you're given.
- Exactly.
Everybody, there's a mass hypnosis,
that's the perfect word
for it, there's this trance
that basically says that your IQ is set.
That your intelligence,
your memory, your potential,
is somehow fixed, like your shoe size.
But here's the truth.
We discovered more about the human brain,
more in the past 10 years, than
the previous thousand years.
Now what we've found, the
latest research is saying,
is we're grossly underestimating
our capabilities.
That we're so much faster
and smarter than we think,
or that we can think,
and so the challenge is,
is if you're stressed,
if you're overloaded,
if you're distracted, if you feel
like you're losing your
memory, it's not your fault.
It's because we grew up with
a 20th century education
that prepared us for a 20th century world,
and at the turn of the 20th century,
it was working on farms, it
was working in factories.
And literally, it was
assembly line education,
cookie cutter, one size
fits all, sit quietly,
don't talk to your neighbour,
all those kind of rules, right?
And the world we live in
though is so different.
We were talking about Elon Musk,
think about the world that
he's helping to create.
Autonomous electric cars,
space ships that are going to Mars,
but our vehicle choice
when it comes to learning and education
is like a horse and buggy,
because they say if Rip Van Winkle,
the guy who slept for
decades, if he woke up today,
the only thing he would
recognise in our world
are our schools, because our
schools haven't advanced.
And this is not a slight against teachers,
you know my mother became a teacher
because she was trying to help me
with my learning difficulties.
My aunt's a professor,
I have such a deep respect for educators,
but the system hasn't changed as quickly.
And so most people who are
stressed and overloaded,
overwhelmed, it's because
we weren't prepared.
Just like with entrepreneurs,
where do they get financial literacy?
Where do they get advice on leadership,
on negotiation, on sales, and marketing?
Where's that taught?
- Yeah, the entourage.
- Yeah, there you go, exactly.
(laughs)
So the two of us, we're
filling in the gaps
in terms of our education.
- Exactly.
I absolutely love it,
I find it so empowering
that our beliefs actually form
our intellectual
capabilities, it's beautiful.
Jim, for those watching at
home, or from their office,
what are some sort of tips
- Yeah, let's do it.
- or tactics you could give them
in terms of enhancing their intellect.
- Yeah, so let's start
with everyone's memory.
I always thought it should have
been the fourth R in school.
In school they teach you three Rs.
Reading, writing, 'rithmetic.
But what about retention?
What about recall?
What about remembering?
Socrates said,
"Learning is remembering."
- Remembering.
- And here's the thing, I do
believe memory makes money,
especially in business, you know,
"I forgot" being the two
most costly words sometimes.
It makes you look like
you're not an expert,
it makes you look like you're
not capable of something,
that you don't care, and
that's not the message,
the meta-message we
want to send to people.
So let's say, for example,
let's take remembering names.
Because I think if there's one
business etiquette networking
skill to master,
- Yeah.
- it's your ability to
recall people's names.
- Yeah.
- And faces, right?
So the challenge is, you meet somebody,
and as soon as the handshake breaks,
the name just falls right to the floor.
Or if it's not a short term
issue, it's a long term issue.
It's like, you're going
about your business,
you're at a conference, you're at the gym,
somebody taps you on your shoulder,
and you see somebody you
recognise, but for the life of you,
you don't remember who
this person is, right?
Or you don't remember where
you know this person from.
And what makes it worse
is when that person
has the audacity or the
nerve to remember your name.
So it gets really awkward, right?
Or you have to introduce two people
who's names you don't know,
and it's like a nightmare.
So how do you fix that?
Three ways.
Three simple steps, alright?
If you're forgetful, if
you're forgetting anything,
anything at all, information
is at the tip of your tongue,
but you can't get it
out, client information,
something you have to talk about on stage,
or in front of a business
meeting in a boardroom,
one of three things is usually missing,
and I say remember Mom,
remember your mom, M-O-M.
So let's say somebody has
trouble remembering names,
but there's a suitcase
here, of one million dollars
in your currency, if you just
remember the person's name,
of the next stranger you meet.
How many people are going to
remember that person's name
for one million dollars cash?
Everybody, right?
Everybody.
Everybody's a memory expert.
Now what technique did they use?
No memory technique.
M stands for motivation.
So as a brain coach, I
need to be able to...
Just like a personal trainer,
you need to be able to call
people on their stuff, right?
And the truth is, they're
capable of it, most of times--
- Yeah.
- But they just don't want to.
- Yeah.
- So notice, nobody
remembers everybody's name,
including myself,
but nobody forgets
everyone's name, either.
- Yeah.
- And think about genius leaves clues.
I always tell that to people.
Genius leaves clues.
When somebody's really great at something,
they're doing something
other people aren't doing.
And so I would say,
if somebody's doing really
great with somebody,
find out how.
And so here's the thing.
You remember people's names
who you're attracted to.
- Yeah.
- You remember somebody who
can be a whale of a client,
because you're motivated.
So ask yourself,
"Why do I want to remember
this person's name?"
Maybe it's to show a person respect.
Maybe it's to make a deal,
maybe it's to make a new friend.
Maybe it's to practise these tips
that I learned through the entourage.
Something...
- Yeah.
- Here's the thing.
Reasons reap results.
You can't come up with a reason,
you won't get the result.
The O, and everyone can do this at home.
So the O is this.
Take your right hand and shake it out.
Everyone do this.
Just shake out your right hand like this,
and just watch me and do this,
make a fist, and then put it to your chin.
Now where's your chin?
(laughs)
- He actually got me.
- And everybody does this too.
Everybody.
I do this in front of an
audience of 10,000 people
and everyone will go like this.
O stands for observation.
Observation.
A lot of people blame their
memory on their retention.
It's not your retention,
it's your attention.
And how's it come back
to remembering names?
- So true.
- A lot of people are
not forgetting the name,
they're not hearing the name.
Even if you write...
So, I got to spend some time
with President Bill Clinton,
and the second time I met
him, we're at a charity event,
2,000 people, I get sat right next to him.
It was me, and then it
was Forest Whitaker,
the academy award winning
actor, Sir Richard Branson,
Ashton Kutcher, Ashton's twin brother,
and then Bill Clinton.
And that was the table.
- Wow, wow.
- And I posted this picture on Instagram,
it's like, "who photoshopped
that Asian dude on that table?"
But when I sat down, he was
like, "Jim, how you doing?"
I was like, "Wow, you remember my name."
It's like, "We had a 30
second conversation before,
"you remember my name,
"you remember like a couple
things we talked about,"
and it was just amazing, he's
got an incredible memory.
Regardless of what people
think about politics,
great charisma, great
connector, great memory.
And I noticed when he was
looking at me and talking to me,
he wasn't paying attention
to anybody else in the room.
There was a lot more important
people at that table,
but he was looking right at me.
A lot of times in business events,
people are looking over our shoulder,
and everything else.
- Looking around, yeah.
- Or you can tell they're distracted.
- Yeah.
- But he was completely here.
And I noticed that his incredible memory,
and his powerful presence,
I feel like it comes from
being powerfully present.
You know what I mean?
His incredible memory, his
powerful presence with people,
comes from being powerfully present.
And you're like that too.
I noticed when we met, it's
like we have a connection.
And that's what people really want.
- Yeah.
- They don't want your gifts,
they want to feel understood.
They want to feel like you're there--
- Yeah.
- That they have your time and attention.
So just be present with people,
even if you take the word
listen and you write it down,
everybody who's watching
this, scramble the letters,
it spells one more word perfectly.
It spells the word silent.
- Wow.
- So just be there, be silent.
And then the third thing, the
third letter, the M in MOM,
stands for mechanics.
And these are not the
person that fixes your car,
but the tools and
techniques and strategies,
kind of things we put in
our podcast, the quick tips,
the strides on how to learn a language,
how to give a speech without notes,
how to remember things word for word,
how to learn facts and
figures and all that stuff,
how to speed read, and
read three times faster.
Those are the mechanical skills.
The only reason I put motivation there,
because human psychology,
positive psychology,
adult learning theory says
you need to understand...
I was doing this presentation
in Silicon Valley,
I get off stage, and Bill
Gates comes up to me.
And I always ask everybody
if you could have any one
super power, what would it be?
And he looks at me, "The
ability to read faster."
And then Warren Buffett
actually said to me,
"I probably wasted ten years
of my life reading slowly."
Because leaders are readers, right?
And Bill said the super
power of reading fast,
and I was like, "I could
totally help you with that."
And we started having a deep
conversation about education,
the future of education,
and the big crowd
gathering around us, right,
and I'm talking from an adult learning,
accelerated learning,
meta-learning standpoint,
and he was coming from a technology stand,
from his super power, and
somebody asked the question,
who was listening,
saying, "What's missing?
"Is it just technology and theory?"
And we talked about it, and we were like,
"You know, we know what's missing."
We came up with the same answer.
Human motivation.
Because a lot of people know what to do,
but they don't always do what they know.
Because common sense
is not common practise,
and understanding what drives
people to make change, right?
And so, for me, it's like,
thinking about what's people's
motivation for taking action,
and I think that's really important,
and so that's why the motivation's so key,
and the observation is
just paying attention.
We remember things, we have this super...
I was running a marathon, right?
I was preparing for it, I
read one chapter in a book,
it was on the psychology of
it, it said this word for word,
literally word for word,
because I'm a memory guy.
And it said, "Your brain
is like a super computer,
"and your self talk is a
programme 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 programmed
your super computer not to.
And that's why people
have to be very cognizant
of their self talk.
And so motivation and observation
are two of the biggest keys,
and then learn the mechanical
skills, the techniques,
the kind of things that
we put in our podcast,
in our online programmes,
the kind of conversations
we're having right now.
- That's really really powerful.
Jim, there's a hell of a
lot of people watching this
that do want to follow you,
- [Jim] Yeah, yeah.
- And perhaps jump onto these podcasts
that we've been talking about.
Where can we find you, where can we find--
- So the best thing is to go on your phone
and just search my name
on your podcast app,
it's just Jim Kwik, you
just have to spell it right,
it's four letters, K-W-I-K,
that's my real name,
I didn't change it to what I do again,
if you search your podcast app,
my podcast's called kwikbrain,
so it's K-W-I-K-brain dot com,
and there's some free training there,
and each podcast's only 10 minutes long,
my top 10 favourite brain foods,
how to change limiting beliefs,
how to change bad habits,
my morning routine is
the most downloaded one.
The ten things I do every single morning
to jump start my brain.
Simple, free things that
you do every single time,
every entrepreneur has to be all over it,
and then I would love for
people to share this video
on social media, tag us both.
- Yeah.
- And I'm @jimkwik on Instagram,
Twitter, and Facebook.
Jim Kwik, and post your questions,
and I'd love to thank you.
- Beautiful.
- Yeah.
- That's great.
Guys, as you can see, Jim Kwik
is absolutely the real deal,
and as entrepreneurs and business owners
who are looking for that edge,
we can do so much more with our minds
than we currently think possible,
and Jim's the perfect role model
to demonstrate exactly
how it is we can do that.
Jim, thank you so much,
mate, that was great.
- Thanks, Jack.
- I appreciate it.
