Episode 376: Jim Kwik: How to Upgrade Your Brain with Meta-Learning and Fitness
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Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits & Hustle. Crush it! Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits & Hustle podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

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It said the same level of thinking that has created your problem won't solve your problem. And it made me think like, what's my problem? Well, I have a broken brain. I'm very slow learner. I was like, well, how do I think differently about it? I was thinking, well, maybe I could fix my brain. Maybe I could learn how to learn better. And I put my studies aside because I wasn't making any traction on that anyway. And I started studying these books and also studying this area of learning how to learn an area of science called meta learning. And, um,

and more about brain health and speed reading mnemonics and about 60 days into it a light switch flipped on and i started to understand things for the first time you know i started to have better focus you know retain information and my grades they shot up but not only that but my life every area of my life got better and with that confidence you know i i couldn't help but help other people because like i feel a more obligation to do what i do because

Shame on us that people are struggling the way we struggled. And we knew something that could help them, and we didn't do that. And so, yeah, I started tutoring. And one of my very first students, she was a college freshman. She read 30 books in 30 days. Can you imagine that? Fully? Yeah, not skim or scan, but she read them. And I wanted to find out not how. I taught her how. I wanted to know why.

Because most people know what to do. You know, a lot of our, a lot of listeners also, they know what to do. They probably, many of your listeners have probably forgotten more about personal growth and business or, you know, like self-development, motivation, everything, mindset than most of their friends and family. But most people don't do what they know, right?

And but she did. And I wanted to find out why. And I found out that her mother was dying of terminal cancer. The doctors were giving her mom just 60 days, about two months to live. And the book she was reading were books to save her mom's life.

Yeah, I get choked up even thinking about it. So I wish her luck, prayers. Six months goes by and I don't hear from her. And then one day I get a call and she's crying profusely, like hysterically. And when she stops, I find out they're tears of joy that her mother not only survived, but is really getting better. Doctors don't know how or why. The doctors were calling it a miracle, but her mother attributed 100% to the great advice she got from her daughter who learned it from all these books.

And in that moment, I realized that if knowledge is power, then learning really is our superpower. And it's a superpower we all have. We just weren't really taught how to do those things. So I've dedicated my life over the past three decades to getting this information out to the world. So basically, obviously, there was a purpose behind what you were doing. And so that's how you started it. And then you kind of taught yourself how to do it.

how to learn. I mean, you've read all these books on meta-learning and then you basically figured out your own process, so to speak, to do it. Yeah. And I realized after doing this and we have an online academy and we have students in every country in the world, we get a lot of feedback that it's not how smart you are. It's really, how are you smart? You know, there's, but there are no classes on focus or concentration or memory or any of these things. And now we live in a world where, I don't know,

we have autonomous electric cars and spaceships that are headed to Mars, but our vehicle of choice when it comes to learning is often more like a horse and carriage, right? And it hasn't changed as much as the world has changed. I mean, especially now, like I feel like, and I know what you're going to say, I feel like my memory is so bad and I know you're going to say, well, if you tell yourself that, but I also think it's because we've now been conditioned to have zero ability to understand

focus and concentrate because if you don't use it, you lose it, right? Like if you give me your phone number, I'll put it in my phone. And then if I need to find you, I'll be like, okay, click or directions. I'll go on MapQuest or Waze, click. Like we're becoming lazy in our brain. Yeah. And so we're not using it as much. And therefore I don't need to, it doesn't require me to remember things. So therefore if I met somebody new or social media, like it's never like everything is so quick. Right. Right. That-

But don't you feel like, how do we mitigate that? Because it's not going to get any better, right? It's just going to get worse. People are still, no one's leaving social media or throwing away their phone. Right, right. And I love technology. I'm not anti-technology. But you're right, it does, if we're too reliant on it, it's very convenient, but it can be crippling. Just like if...

You mentioned numbers. I don't want to memorize 500 phone numbers, but it should be concerning we've lost the ability to remember one. That's right. Or a PIN number or a passcode or a seed phrase or the conversation we just had or something we just read or something we're going to say or someone's name or any of that. I believe two of the most costly words

I know you have a lot of entrepreneurs that subscribe to the most costly words sometimes in business are I forgot. I forgot to do it, I forgot to bring it, I forgot the meeting, I forgot that conversation, I forgot that name, all that. On the other side though, memory can make someone a lot of money.

Meaning if you could easily remember client information, product information, give speeches without notes, sales scripts on video, without a teleprompter or names and faces, all this stuff, then you could write your own ticket. And everybody has that ability, but we don't exercise it.

So they call it digital dementia, the high reliance on technology. It serves as an external memory device. But then you're right, your brain is like a muscle. It's obviously an organ, but it's like a muscle. It's use it or lose it, as you said. But it's the equivalent of if I had to go, I don't know, like...

you know, 10 blocks and I end up driving instead of walking. Or if your office is on the third or fourth floor, your apartment's there and you end up taking the elevator each time instead of walking it, you know, you're not getting the fitness. And a lot of people are losing their mental fitness because they're not doing the work. And so again, it's a balance between convenience and, you know, having your own

autonomy and power also as well. So I think using your memory when you can is a wonderful way, just like when people get their steps in, right? It's just like, you know, we're not doing the mental calisthenics, if you will. Right. And so you touched upon something that I was going to ask you later on, but

The fitness part, right? Yeah. I feel like if I don't work out, my brain won't work as well. Right. And I do think there's a, and you can tell me, the connection between physical fitness and mental fitness. Oh, yeah. Right? And that to me is like my number one tip for people who want to improve their focus, their energy, their memory, work out. Yeah. Because if not, like I feel like you get such brain fog.

Yeah, it's a must, you know, for everybody. You know, as your body moves, your brain grooves. Yeah. Literally. I love that. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You've got a lot of these good sayings. Yeah, I try to make them as memorable as possible. That's good to say. You have a ton of them. You said something else, you know, like,

A lot of it, but like you have a lot of these like things like that, the reader, leader, like they're great. The faster you can learn, the faster you can earn. Yeah, I feel like knowledge today is not only power, knowledge is profit, you know, but exercise is one of the most important things you could do for your brain health.

When you're moving, generally what's good for your heart is going to be good for your head. So you're getting more blood flow. Like when we're sitting, blood is like kind of pooling into our body and away from our minds. But when your body moves, you make more connections. You create brain derived neurotrophic factors, BDNF, which is like fertilizer for neuroplasticity, for new brain cell growth.

It's so important for learning. It changes your mood, which could obviously reduce the stress, helps you sleep better. And all that has an impact on our ability, you know, our brain and our brain's ability to perform. You know, we get blood flow, we get more oxygen to our brain. Our brain is only, what, about 2% of our body mass, but it uses like 20% of the fuel. It's an energy hog. But yeah, working out is one of the most important things you can do for your brain.