16-05-2021-043351Limitless-Jim -Kwik

them to play the ukulele; it’s very difficult to do without ever being taught how.

And, following the hero’s journey, I couldn’t help but share the treasure and lessons I learned. I started tutoring these methods to other students. The turning point came when I worked with a freshman who wanted to learn how to read faster, boost comprehension, and retain the information she was studying. She worked diligently and achieved her goal of reading 30 books in 30 days. I knew how she did it—I taught her the method you’ll learn in Chapter 14—but I wanted to know why. I discovered that her motivation was that her mother had been diagnosed with a terminal cancer, and she was determined to save her by studying books on health, wellness, and medicine. Months later, she called me, crying tears of joy, to tell me that her mother’s cancer was in remission.

It was in that moment that I realized that if knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower. And our capacity to learn is limitless; we simply need to be shown how to access it. Seeing the way this woman’s life was changed ignited in me a purpose, allowing me to recognize what became my life’s mission: to teach the mindset, motivation, and methods to upgrade your brain and learn anything faster so you can unlock your exceptional life.

Over the course of more than two decades, I’ve developed a reliable and proven set of practical methods to enhance learning, many of which appear in this book. I have not only kept my promise to read a book a week, but continue to serve and support everyone from children labeled “learning disabled,” to seniors with brain-aging challenges. Our team, dedicated to the memory of my grandmother, passionately supports Alzheimer’s research. And we believe education is every child’s birthright, funding the creation of schools around the world from Guatemala to Kenya, providing health care, clean water, and learning for children in need via amazing organizations such as WE Charity and Pencils of Promise. That’s our mission—to build better brighter brains. We’re leaving no brain behind.

I’ve taught these techniques to others with astonishing results, leading me to address more than 150,000 people in live audiences each year in every field imaginable, to serve as the brain coach to

top personalities in sports and entertainment, to train at many of the world’s leading companies and universities, to head a large accelerated learning online platform with students from 195 countries, and to host a top educational podcast called Kwik Brain, with tens of millions of downloads and to have my teachings receive hundreds of millions of video views. This book is filled with lessons and practical advice I’ve learned over the years, along with wisdom and resources from many of the guest experts who have been featured on our show.

I say all of this because, having dedicated my life to researching and teaching this subject, I know what’s inside this book and, more importantly, I know what’s inside you.

FINDING PROFESSOR X’S SCHOOL

There’s a serendipitous coda to this story. As I mentioned, I regularly offer brain coaching to CEOs and their teams. A few years ago, Jim Gianopulos, then CEO and Chairman of 20th Century Fox, invited me to do a coaching session with his executive team. I went onto the film lot on a Friday morning and spent several hours with top staff members. They were particularly open to my message, and they instantly connected with the techniques.

When the session was over, Jim came up to me and said, “That was incredible. It was one of the very best training sessions we’ve ever held.” I was delighted to hear this, of course. Who doesn’t love positive feedback? Later, during a tour of the lot, my eye landed on a poster for the Wolverine movie, which was scheduled to come out later that year. I pointed to the poster and said, “I can’t wait to see that film. I’m a huge fan.”

“Oh, you like superheroes?” Jim said.

“Love ’em. The X-Men have played a major role in my life.” I went on to tell him about my childhood brain injury, how comic books helped me learn to read, and my search for Professor X’s school.

He smiled at me. “You know, we have another 30 days of shooting on the next X-Men movie in Montreal. Why don’t you come along and spend a week on the set? The actors would love to work with you.”

THE LIMITLESS MODEL

You can learn to be, do, have, and share with no constraints. I wrote this book to prove this to you. If you are not learning or living at your full potential, if there is a gap between your current reality and your desired reality, here’s the reason: There is a limit that must be released and replaced in one of three areas:

A limit in your Mindset—you entertain a low belief in yourself, your capabilities, what you deserve, or what is possible.

A limit in your Motivation—you lack the drive, purpose, or energy to take action.

A limit in your Methods—you were taught and are acting on a process that is not effective to create the results you desire.

This applies to an individual, a family, an organization. We all have our own unique story of struggles and strengths. Whatever your situation happens to be, here’s the best part: You’re not alone. I’m going to help you become limitless in your own way, within the threepart framework you’re about to learn: Limitless Mindset, Limitless Motivation, and Limitless Methods. Let me break it down:

Mindset (the WHAT): deeply held beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions we create about who we are, how the world works, what we are capable of and deserve, and what is possible.

Motivation (the WHY): the purpose one has for taking action. The energy required for someone to behave in a particular way.

Method (the HOW): a specific process for accomplishing something, especially an orderly, logical, or systematic way of instruction.

One other note about the diagram on the previous page. You’ll see that where mindset crosses over with motivation, I have the word inspiration. You’re inspired, but you don’t know which methods to employ or where to channel your energy. Where motivation and method intersect, you have implementation. In this case, your results are going to be limited to what you feel you deserve, what you feel you are capable of, and what you believe is possible because you lack the proper mindset. Where mindset and method intersect, you have ideation. Your ambitions stay in your mind, because you lack the energy to do anything about them. Where all three intersect, you have the limitless state. You then have the fourth I, which is integration.

Throughout this book, you’ll find exercises, studies, mental tools, and the results of exciting work being done both on the frontier of cognitive science and performance as well as ancient wisdom (for example, how ancient civilizations remembered generations of knowledge before external storage devices like the printing press). We’ll approach the 3 M’s in turn:

In Part II, Limitless Mindset, you’ll learn what is possible when you eradicate limiting beliefs.

In Part III, Limitless Motivation, you’ll discover why your purpose is your power and keys to unleash your drive and energy.

In Part IV, Limitless Methods, you’ll discover how to learn at your best with proven processes—the tools and techniques that will propel you forward toward the life you desire and deserve.

And, at the end of the book, I give you a 10-day plan to jump-start your progress toward a limitless week and a limitless life.

When you finish this book, you’ll have the ability to be limitless in any area important to you, whether it’s academic, health, career, relationships, or personal growth. Since I never truly got to study at the X-Men school, I created it for you in our online Kwik Learning Academy, where people of all ages from 195 nations train with us daily to unleash their mental superpowers. Consider Limitless your textbook. It would be an honor to be your Professor X, and I’m so excited that you’ve decided to take this journey with me. Class is now in session. And here’s the best part; your timing could not be any better.

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I’m a firm believer that we all have incredible superpowers that are waiting to be awakened. I’m not talking about the ability to fly, create iron-clad armor, or shoot lasers from your eyes, but real-life practical abilities like flying through books, iron-clad memory, laser focus, boundless creativity, clear thinking, mindfulness, superior mental attitude, and more. We are all superheroes in one way or another.

Just as every superhero has powers, so do they have arch nemeses. Enter the supervillain. Think the Joker to Batman, Lex Luthor to Superman. The villains we face may not look the same as they do in the movies, but they’re still the bad guys—the ones you, as a superhero, need to vanquish and hold at bay. Modern-day supervillains get in our way and make life harder, keeping us from our potential. They hold us back and rob us of our productivity, prosperity, positivity, and peace of mind. And it’s up to us to recognize and defeat them.

If you’ve ever read a comic book or watched a superhero movie, you know that supervillains are often borne of unlikely places. Take Harvey Dent, also known as Two-Face, for example. He starts out with the greatest of intentions—he’s a prosecutor helping to uphold the law and put the bad guys in jail, and he’s an ally of Batman. But through an act of revenge, Dent’s face is scarred, and he turns angry, bitter, and vengeful. He becomes what he had spent his life fighting: a duplicitous criminal who gambles with his victims’ futures. The good in him becomes twisted and used for sinister ends.

In the same way, the four supervillains of learning started out innocent—they are being fed by some of the greatest advancements

that humankind has made in the last hundred years. They were given rise by technology. To be clear, technology is a vital part of progress and being limitless. It allows us to do everything from connecting to learning, making our lives that much more convenient. But it is possible that we consume digital technology at a rate that even its creators would find extreme. Much of the technology available to us today is so new that we don’t know the level at which we need to control our interaction with it.

Through our educational platform Kwik Learning, we have students in 195 countries and have generated tens of millions of podcast downloads. Our community has expressed a growing concern about their overreliance on technology and they come to us to upgrade their brains to find relief from these “four horsemen” of our age: digital deluge, digital distraction, digital dementia, and digital deduction. It’s important to note that overload, distraction, forgetfulness, and default thinking have been around for ages. While technology doesn’t cause these conditions, it has great potential to amplify them. The benefits of the digital age are plentiful, but let’s take a look at how the advances in technology that help you, can possibly also hinder you.

DIGITAL DELUGE

Do you have too much to process but not enough time? We’re privileged to live in a world with so much unfettered access to information. In this age of connectivity, ignorance is a choice. Compared to the 15th century, we now consume as much data in a single day as an average person from the 1400s would have absorbed in an entire lifetime. Not so long ago, information moved glacially through word of mouth, or a newspaper, or a posted bulletin in a town square. Now we have so much access to information that it’s taking a toll on our time and our quality of life. The average person consumes three times as much information as we did in the

1960s;1 a 2015 report indicated that respondents spent eight hours a day consuming media.

In an NPR interview, New York Times tech reporter Matt Richtel said that after 20 years of glorifying technology as if all of it were