Jim Kwik on Accelerated Learning and Brain Health

In this episode, I have the honor of hosting the incredible Jim Kwik, a world-renowned brain coach and memory expert. Jim shares his remarkable journey from being labeled the "boy with the broken brain" to becoming a leading authority in brain performance and accelerated learning. Jim shares strategies for enhancing memory, boosting reading speed, and unlocking the true potential of our minds. 

Rising from the challenges of a childhood brain injury, Jim developed groundbreaking strategies to enhance mental performance. For over three decades, he's been on a mission to empower individuals to unlock their true genius, empowering them to live a life of greater power, productivity, and purpose. Jim is a coach and the author of the book Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life.

Connect with Jim and grab your free virtual pass to the “Limitless Learner Summit” starting August 5. At the summit, you will learn from Jim Kwik and other expert speakers how to supercharge your memory, optimize brain health, and unlock your potential, leading to increased productivity, performance, and personal growth.

Episode Highlights:

[01:40] - Jim's journey and overcoming his traumatic brain injury.
[06:43] - Jim's mission is to empower individuals through brain training.
[10:03] - The significance of mindset and the power of words.
[11:13] - Practical brain health tips, including diet and hydration.
[15:45] - How can killing ants improve your brain?
[20:13] - Speed reading techniques and the importance of focus.
[31:50] - The Pomodoro Technique and managing focus with ADHD.
[38:42] - The role of choice in achieving flow states and maintaining focus. 
[44:44] - Jim's advice for staying in a flow state and the power of stopping mid-sentence.
[46:30] - Show up for yourself at The Limitless Learner Summit.

Connect with Jim Kwik:

Free Virtual Pass to the Limitless Learner Summit (August 5th to 7th): https://www.TheLimitlessLearner.com/CWB

Follow Jim Kwik on social media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter

Thank you for tuning into "SuccessFULL with ADHD." If this episode has impacted you, remember to rate, follow, share, and review our podcast. Your support helps us reach and help more individuals navigating their journeys with ADHD.

Want to be ‘SuccessFULL with ADHD’ by Activating Your ADHD Potential?
Order our 3x best-selling book/workbook for adults with ADHD ▶️ http://bit.ly/activateadhd

Transcript

Brooke Schnittman: 0:00

The biggest thing that I hear from ADHD ears is I don't want to do the Pomodoro Technique. I don't want to do 10 to 40 minutes, because I don't know if I'm gonna get this focus back, you're in a flow state, right? And then you have to stop and break. What do we do about that? You're

Jim Kwik: 0:16

getting into that flow state, we make these choices. And if I'm in flow writing, I won't stop. But I will. Here's a little brain hack, you know, work on my next book in the flow. I will go beyond the 25 minutes if I'm coming up with great content. But here's the hack. I'll stop in the middle of a sentence. Oh, because when I pick it up again, I'll know exactly where to pick up and I'll have instant momentum.

Brooke Schnittman: 0:42

My mind is blown. Welcome to successful with ADHD. I'm Brooke Shipman. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. Today I have Jim quick. And before I even tell you who he is, I have been reading limitless his book for six, seven years and rereading it, which is not common with ADHD. And I bought one for my husband because we can't share the book. And inadvertently not only has Jim helped me as an ADHD er and an ADHD coach, but he has an inverted Lee helped my 1000s of clients and listeners because we share some of his groundbreaking strategies with our community. So this is a real honor to have you here today, Jim. So good to be here. And for those of you who happen to not know, Jim, you will know Him after this. But he has a unique story. He had a childhood brain injury, and he developed strategies to enhance mental performance. And for over three decades, he has been on a mission to empower individuals to unlock the true genius empowering them to live a life of greater power, productivity and purpose. And Jim is not like an overnight success. He has worked with students, tech mavens to CEOs, Hollywood celebrities, professional athletes, and his teaching resonate with a diverse audience. So it's not just individuals with ADHD, but people who are really looking to expand the neuroplasticity in their brain. So Jim has worked with industry giants like Google virgin, Nike, SpaceX, and yes, Richard Branson has ADHD for those listening, and 20th Century Fox along with institutions like Harvard and the UN who have embraced Jim's methodology as a warm welcome to successful with ADHD. Jim.

Jim Kwik: 2:38

Thank you, Brooke, thank you. Everybody's taking time to listen to this. I'm looking forward to pouring into everybody and then giving them some tools that they can employ right away, to level up their learning in their in their life.

Brooke Schnittman: 2:51

Absolutely. Absolutely. So Jim, I read your story several times. And your story really starts with the traumatic brain injury, right being called the boy with a broken brain in grade school. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how you overcame a lot of the challenges from your TBI. So yeah,

Jim Kwik: 3:18

my inspiration was my, my desperation. It's, I realize, and I'm sure some of your community can relate to going through challenge leads to change, you know, they're going through certain struggles lead to strengths, when people see me live out depends. And this past week, I was on three continents in one week. You know, we're in front of a good few 100,000 people a year I do these demos, if there's time where we're passing on a microphone, and maybe 50 or 100 people introduce themselves in the audience, and I'll memorize their names or something like that and write a mental feat, but I always tell people I don't do is to impress you, I really do express to you what's possible. Because the truth is, by large, everyone listening can do that. And a lot more. We just weren't taught. And some people automatically think there's just no way and you know, we're doing an event that we wanted to give everyone a complimentary ticket to for three days we're going to show you we're actually roll up our sleeves, and I'm gonna show you how to read faster, improve your memory, we're going to put people on stage and show they'll introduce themselves. I'll show you how to remember their names and do things you never thought possible. I know it's possible because as you mentioned, I had a traumatic brain injury when I was five. I took a very bad fall in kindergarten class. I was knocked unconscious rushed to the emergency room, bleeding and so on. But where it really showed up was in school. You know, before the parents said I was very energized or playful, very curious. I just shut down and I had processing issues, teachers would have to repeat themselves over and over again. A lot of times I still didn't understand I would pretend to understand. Alright, you shake your head how I've had a very bad focus. Talk about attention, my attention. It was just non existent. I had migraines every day at the age of five and six balance issues because of my, my brain injury. I remember it took me three years longer practice to learn how to read. And at those, you know, it's embarrassing. Being around morons call your pastor on that book. Yeah, it's

Brooke Schnittman: 5:24

the pop reading. Okay, Jim, you're next. And you don't even realize you're next, how much anxiety that is.

Jim Kwik: 5:31

Even the average person that would be anxiety built for me, I really couldn't read. So when the book came to me, I would look at all the words and I would be so embarrassed, I would just pass the book to next person, you know, because I just couldn't read for three years. When I was nine years old. This is where everything really changed. It's hard to tell if it's good or bad, but I was slowing down to class. And because I just didn't get the lesson I was being teased pretty harshly. And a teacher came to my defense, she pointed to me in front the whole class and said, Leave, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. And I know she had really good intentions. But that label became my limit. You know, adults have to be very careful of their external words, because they often become a child's internal words. So where did that manifest every time I did bad in school or wasn't picked for sports, or whatever, which was all the time, I would say to myself, I would say Oh, because I have the broken brain. Right. And so I struggled all through school, elementary, middle school, junior high high school every single day. And it's not because I was lazy, I would work at least two or three times harder than most people. But I still was barely passing and age of 18, I was fortunate enough and blessed enough to meet a mentor, who introduced me to brain science, ancient mnemonics, the speed reading and just mindset. And things changed. My grades improved dramatically. But then I started to tutor and one of my very first students get this she read 30 books in 30 days. Now not skim or scan, she read them, because I was like quizzing her and stuff. And and I wanted to find out not how I taught her how we're going to teach this in this work. We're doing something called the limitless learner Summit. And we wanted to gift your community a free virtual pass to it. But I want to know why. I mean, I mean, notice, like so many people know what to do broke, but they don't do what they know. Yeah, it's common sense. It's not common practice. We know we should do doing certain things, but we just don't do it. So I wanted to find out the how and the why yes. And I want to know her why they drove her to read 30 books book a day, essentially. And the explanation I got was her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, doctors gave her mom only a couple months to live. And the book she was reading were books as her mom's life. So she had major motivation, major purpose, major motivation, you know, without a reason, you won't get the results. And I wish her luck, prayers. Six months goes by, I don't hear from her i And one day, I get a call from this young lady, and she's crying hysterically. And when she stops, I find out there tears of joy, that her mother not only survived, but it's really getting better. The doctors don't know how or why the doctors are calling it a miracle. But her mother attributed 100% to the great advice she got from her daughter, who's learned it from all these books. And in that moment, I got goosebumps saying that I call them truth bumps. But in that moment, I realized that if knowledge is power, than learning is our superpower. That knowledge is power learning is our superpower as a superpower we all have. And I also learned my mission, my personal Dharma and life, which is building better, brighter brains, no brain left behind. And, you know, my teachers would have been surprised if I read a book much less wrote books. But it's one of those things where, you know, I'm turning 51 this month. So I've been doing it for 30, over 32 years. And we have students, we have the largest online academy of accelerated learning speed reading memory focus. And I realized that regardless of your age, or your background, your career, your educational level, your gender history, IQ, that all of us could make massive changes in your brain is your number one wealth building asset. It's not like it was 1000s of years ago, where our value in society was more to be able to move like yeah, today, it's our brain strength. That's not That's not our muscle power takes our mind power. And the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn. And you can easily learn you're like if people seen me with Branson or Oprah or Elon. People always wonder how we connected we bonded over books, our love of reading. And it's so great because if somebody has decades of experience and they put it and get it out of a book, and you can read it a few days you can download decades in a day. is like, advantage,

Brooke Schnittman: 10:03

Jim, if it's okay with you, you know what the teacher said was so powerful, of course. And it's amazing how the negatives just stick to us like Velcro, right? And then the positive just roll off of our brains like Teflon. And there was a client that I had, who was 40. And his mental health practitioner said to him, your brain will not improve. And he came to me and like dump your mental health practitioner now, like, Does this person not know about neuroplasticity? So the fact that you are sharing that at any age 6050 4030 20, you can change the way that your brain operates. And you can rewire the negative messages and start thinking more positively because we're all negatively biased, right? But then you have the story, a traumatic story like yours. And that's probably so hard to overcome. But with the practice and the expansion of the brain, which is like a muscle, it's possible. So for my ADHD audience, let's talk about some of the strategies that you used to reprogram your brain that you share with your community today.

Jim Kwik: 11:25

Specific for ADHD, or in general,

Brooke Schnittman: 11:29

just in general, like how do you help people with memory? Because working memory is one of the biggest issues and executive dysfunction for people with ADHD?

Jim Kwik: 11:40

Sure, absolutely. So there's, I take a two prong approach. We teach people the process for memorizing things. And each process is different depending on their outcome, like remembering names is different than remembering a language than memorizing a TEDx talk that you want to give. So there's different tools that will get you to that result, it's kind of like, if I was a sports coach, and somebody says, I want to be better at sports than that coach would say, Well, what's sports specifically, you know, because there's different training based on different outcomes. That being said, we teach people the process of reading faster, improving their memory, and so on. That's the kind of like the software. But you also have to take care of the hardware, which is your brain, the brain itself. And you're saying, you know, talking about neuroplasticity, we've discovered more about the human brain in the past 20 years than the previous 2000 years combined. And I think a good conclusion that we've drawn is we were grossly under estimating our own capabilities. And I know this to be true, just because, you know, we, because of the community that we built, helping people level up their learning in life. But the starting point would be, I would say, you're taking care of your brain, so 1/3 of your brain, approximately, depending on what research you buy into is predetermined by genetics and biology. But two thirds is in our influence and control. Now, some people believe with epigenetics, that 100% is in our influence. But regardless, it's a it's a large amount, nature and nurture. So they're there, they're 10 things that would help us to have a better brain that would move the needle, and that two thirds, I'll give it out kind of rapid fire. And what I would ask is, maybe make this a little bit active, I'm talking to the person listening and, and take notes. So you write down these 10 things. And they're pretty common sense. and rate yourself on a scale of zero to 10. How much energy and effort have you put into this thing, the past seven days, if that makes sense, because everybody wants to know what's the magic pill for better memory, or whatever, or focus. It's not a pill, but there is a process, right, and there's always a method behind what looks like magic. And so I'll go through all 10 Very quickly, and then just raise yourself zero to 10 How much energy and effort 10 being the best in the past week. So number one, a good brain diet, what you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. To that end, we have special guests coming on this three day event, and one of them is one of the world's top neuro nutritionists. So he's gonna talk about the best brain foods and the best supplements for cognitive health and cognitive performance. And so your brain has only 2% of your body mass but requires 20% of the nutrients and some of those nutrients are different than the rest of your body. So some of my favorite brain foods are things like avocados, blueberries, I like to call them brain berries, broccoli. Now everyone's a little bio individual depending on their food sensitivity. Some people can be allergic to certain things or their diet paradigm. Olive oil. Your diet allows eggs the codename in AES leads to acetylcholine which is very important for cognitive health. green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach. If your diet allows also, to get your omega threes your DHA people Get it from flashlight for people with ADHD very much. So flax salmon, sardines tumeric. For me, it's BrainFood the active ingredients curcumin, which is helps to lower systemic inflammation, while nuts. high in vitamin E, there are protective, dark chocolate. Not none milk chocolate, low sugar, because on the other side that would lower your score. Zero to 10 would be highly processed foods, all the additives, chemicals, you know, high sugar, the glucose spikes could wreak havoc on your brain, insulin resistance, all of that. So a scale of zero to 10. The past seven days to me the best how how well if you've been feeding your brain. Number two killing ants affects Yes. Dr. Ayman Yes. So Dr. Ayman scan my brain a long time ago, and put me on a protocol and I scanned it again recently, and it was totally different. And ants, he termed killing ants, automatic negative thoughts. That's what he stands for. Your brain is like a supercomputer. And people come to me at events see me do these demonstrations. And they're available to say, you know, Jim, in the lobby, I'm just too old. I'm not smart enough to limited mindset, right? Yes, very much. So. And I always say the same thing. I say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limits, they're yours. Your brains is incredible supercomputer and your beliefs, your self talk your thoughts, they are the program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering people's names, you won't remember the name and next person you meet, because you program your supercomputer not to. So zero to 1010 being the best, how well are you mitigating those negative thoughts? And how encouraging are your thoughts? It's not that you have a negative thought ruins your life, you eat a doughnut doesn't ruin your life. But if you eat that doughnut 50 times in a day, every single day, there will be a consequence. It's hard to create a positive life with a negative mind. And so your mind is always eavesdropping on your self talk. So I was killed zero to 10. How, how encouraging is it? Even if you find yourself saying I don't have a great memory, being self aware is the first part of making a transformation. So if you find yourself saying I don't have a great memory, just add a little word like yet at the end, it just feels different. I don't have a great memory yet.

Brooke Schnittman: 17:20

Yes. And that's really that mindset shift, right that all of us need to take before we have the tools, the other tools to add no motivation, right? mindset.

Jim Kwik: 17:33

Yeah, momentum. Exactly. I take a very strength based approach to ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, you name it, to be able to optimize it, I feel like some of the most accomplished individuals have these traits, because it forced them to look at things differently and think differently and learn differently and perform differently. And so, you know, we have a brain quiz also, where people take a four minute assessment, and you can see your dominant brain type. And then we give for free, you know, advice on how to kind of like personalized medicine based on a test like genetics, or personalized nutrition based on microbiome test. This four minute assessment, which is online and also in the book will give you how to read faster, and who's your memory and so on, based on your dominant brain type. Because everybody learns a little. It's not how smart you are, or how smart your kids are. It's not how smart you are. It's how are you smart. And we all have genius, you know, it's just your brain doesn't come with an owner's manual. It's not always user friendly.

Brooke Schnittman: 18:34

Don't you wish that we had our brain manual a little bit or are you happy to kind of just make your

Jim Kwik: 18:40

that's why I wrote limitless because I feel like if there's a book out there you want to read but it hasn't been written yet. You know, I felt a moral obligation to write it. There's a scene where in the matrix Neo meets the or the All Knowing Oracle for the first time and it's in her kitchen, she's baking cookies, and when Neil walks in the door, canneries, there's a there's a sign above the door I think most people miss but it says Know thyself. I think a big part of this journey in life is having the curiosity to know yourself. And then the second part is having the courage to be yourself also as well. A part of knowing yourself is understanding is knowing your brain I want people to know their brain to love their brain and most importantly to use use their brain. Jim,

Brooke Schnittman: 19:23

quick question, will you be sharing these 10 things on your Summit? Oh,

Jim Kwik: 19:27

we're gonna bring in experts that are more qualified than me to talk about these into like we have the top sleep doctor in the world come in. First. Yeah, Dr. Michael is a friend

Brooke Schnittman: 19:37

of our successful with ADHD as well.

Jim Kwik: 19:39

Oh, very nice. So typically, his topic will be for learning. I think the most important skill to master in the 21st century Bardon is your ability to learn rapidly. An individual's ability to learn rapidly and translate that learning into action is the ultimate competitive advantage. Because if you can learn how to learn, you can focus and concentrate read better understand, remember or implement, think clearer? Yeah, what can you apply that to?

Brooke Schnittman: 20:04

Anything, I want to know, since these experts are going to be at your Summit, instead of giving away the kitchen sink here, I would love for you to share some of your reading strategies because top ADHD experts share that 45% of people with ADHD have a coexisting learning disability. And the majority is dyslexia. That's one of the top learning disabilities. So I know in from reading your book, many times that you have lots of speed reading strategies. And you also have like tricks, which I find fascinating, like the counting trick in between.

Jim Kwik: 20:48

You really want to play I told you, it's one of my favorite books. I

Brooke Schnittman: 20:52

also mentioned your book, in my book, activate your ADHD potential, Dr. Bruce is in it as well. But I really would love that's the thing like, and I also just shared some of your strategies yesterday with my group that you have to know why you're reading before you start reading. Right? So I don't want to spill all the beans, why don't you share your top reading strategies to help with decoding with fluency with comprehension? Because it's not only the dyslexia that might be coexisting with ADHD, but it's also the attention right? Very

Jim Kwik: 21:28

much so. So the art of learning in the art of reading is the art of attention. That alertness, your ability to sustain attention and concentrate is very important in order to be able to absorb and understand or much less retain what you need to talking about Richard Branson years ago, Richard wanted to meet somebody else that I knew Stanley who created a lot of Marvel superhero characters. And I'm very passionate around superheroes, because I taught myself how to read by reading comic books. That's how after three years of struggle I would, somebody in the family gifted me a comic book, and I'd be underneath the covers reading the same comic book and something about the illustrations brought the words to life, right. And I remember they wanted to meet each other. So I pickups, Stan, and we're in the car going to dinner. And I had to ask him the question, I was like, You created all the amazing X Men, Fantastic Four vendors, who's your favorite? And he says, Jim, my favorite is Iron Man. And he said, Jim, who's your favorite superhero. And I posted this picture on social on Facebook and Instagram is he had a big in the car, a Spider Man tie, and I said, Spider Man. And without pauses in Stanley's iconic voice, he goes with great power comes great responsibility, right? And maybe because of my head injuries, I had three of them before age 12. I sometimes reverse things when I read and when I hear. And I heard something different. I was like, You're right, Stan, with great power comes great responsibility. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make things better. And can have it start with always personal agency that we have more influence and you control the controllables than than we then we realize, right. And so when it comes to reading, reading is one of the most important brain exercises you can do. Everybody wants to know what the fancy app is, or you could use our app or whatever. But I think reading is like to your mind, what exercises to your body. And so coming from that framework of personal responsibility and the emphasis and importance of reading, go through a couple of strategies that if people want to read, you know, a book and want to thank everyone who purchased limitless, you know, we've done a couple million copies sold 40 different languages, we donate all the proceeds to charity. That's amazing. Thank you nonprofits that build schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, where there are no schools in that village and also Alzheimer's research for women in memory, and my grandmother who I lost to Alzheimer's when I was seven, and so many is I mean, anyone who's know somebody who has had dementia, it's, you know, she would call me by my father's name, I'd be very confused, or she would repeat something she just had 30 seconds ago. And I realized, having good memory is not just about memory, facts, figures, foreign languages, formulas. It's about remembering these moments, right of our loved ones and our lap and what we've learned and how we lived, that your memories are like the tapestry of your life when people lose that they're a different person almost. And so we fund research for women because women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than men. In most of the research is done on men and treatments on men and so in memory of my grandmother, but, but going back to reading a few things that all of us could do for speed and comfort. mansion. Number one. The reason why a lot of people aren't great readers whether they have these traits or not, is we're not taught. Like think about it reading is not a skill we're born with. We were taught it, when's the last time you took a class called reading? I mean, how old were you? When you when you took a class called Reading, not like a college lit class, but like,

Brooke Schnittman: 25:23

No, I mean, only English language arts. And last time I had an English language arts class, which isn't necessarily reading was in high school. Yeah,

Jim Kwik: 25:35

most person who took a reading class called reading they were five or six years old. So the difficulty in demand has increased a lot, but how we read is fundamentally the same. And so that growing gap is something called information anxiety. The markers are higher blood pressure and depression of leisure time, more sleeplessness, right. We're drowning, by books, they sit on your shelf, become shelf health, not self help, really, like take a sip of water out of firehose? Yeah,

Brooke Schnittman: 26:03

it's like the graveyard of books with a bunch of dust that you need to blow off that you never look at. Exactly.

Jim Kwik: 26:11

So I think, starting there, knowing that it's not our fault if we're slow reader, or not understanding because we weren't taught since we're six, right, so part of is upgrading those skills. The second thing that affects reading, as you mentioned, is focus. Now we know here's an interesting take on focus. People think if you like, in our reading program, which is the best time reading program in the world, we triple on average reading speed with better comprehension. So essentially read something in 15 or 20 minutes, that normally takes somebody an hour, right. And even if you could just double your reading speed, the average person reads four hours a day. I mean, you think about the journals, the research, the emails of social media, whatever you're reading four hours a day. That means we double your reading speed, you save two hours a day. I mean, just think about it from a productivity piece, place like two hours a day over the course of a year. Even if you save one hour a day over the course of years, 365 hours. But

Brooke Schnittman: 27:08

if they listen to your book about turning off all of your distractions before reading the book, then they won't be reading for hours. It's

Jim Kwik: 27:16

true that they save an hour a day. 365 hours divided by a 40 hour workweek is more than nine weeks to months of productivity, you get back saving just one hour a day on something you because like reading. But here's the thing, when we get this feedback from our students, if I asked you to read faster, or the person listening to read faster, what would they say would happen to their comprehension? Would they guess

Brooke Schnittman: 27:41

they would think it would have gone down because if they're reading faster, they're skimming and they're not retaining the information

Jim Kwik: 27:47

in here's what our data shows is actually the fastest readers in our community tend to have better comprehension. Not less, but better. Enhance comprehension, because they have better focus. Let's say you're reading you have this incredible supercomputer between your ears, your brain, but when you read you feed it, the supercomputer, one word.

Brooke Schnittman: 28:11

You've already lost me. Right?

Jim Kwik: 28:12

Exactly. So metaphorically, if I was to speak, and I'm from New York, and you know, so we were talking about if I was to talk that slowly, which I can't know how well first of all, this would be a five, this would be five hours long. And what would naturally happen after a few seconds, you usually lose

Brooke Schnittman: 28:30

focus. I mean, ADHD is hate slow talkers. Let's be

Jim Kwik: 28:33

honest. Exactly. So you'll think about all the things your mind will wander, you'll fall asleep. But isn't it interesting, those are the same symptoms that people have when they read. So if you don't give your brain we say a different way, if you don't give your mind the stimulus it needs, it will seek entertainment elsewhere, often in the form of distractions, it's like, if you're going so slow, it's gonna start distracting because you're you're feeding your the input is too slow. It's like driving, if you're in your neighborhood, and you're going to

Brooke Schnittman: 29:02

20,000 different stimuli, right?

Jim Kwik: 29:05

And you're taking a pay attention to all this stuff, you'd be thinking about the dry cleaning, drinking your Starbucks, you know, trying to text or checking your makeup, whatever, because you're going slow. Your attention is split five, six different ways singing a song, whatever. But if you are racing a car like f1, like on a race track, taking hairpin turns, it's

Brooke Schnittman: 29:24

all you're thinking about is surviving.

Jim Kwik: 29:28

You're focused on two things, you're focused on what's in front of you. And the act of driving. Reading slow is like riding a bicycle really slow. You can't do it without wobbling and falling over. You need some kind of cadence and, and momentum. Yeah. And so what I would say is to get rid of that. I want to before I give you a couple of tactics is some people's mindset is oh, I read faster than I won't understand it, and then you won't even use the method, right? And then the third obstacle which you alluded to is something called subvocalization and we'll talk about that during the this live complimentary Summit. subvocalization is that inner voice you ever noticed when you're reading something, you hear that inner voice inside your head reading along with you. And so the reason why it's an obstacle to reading faster and better, is because if you have to say all the words inside your mind, in order to understand, you can only read as fast as you could speak. That means your reading speed is limited to your talking speed, but not your thinking speed. Yeah, and you know, whether somebody has ATD ADHD or not, the thing is, is, well, anyone's gonna get bored, if the input is just too slow. And the question becomes, do you have to say the words inside your mind in order to understand them? Like we said, New York City? Do you have to say the words when you're reading New York City, in your mind in order to understand them? And the answer is absolutely not. It's like seeing a stop sign. And nobody says themselves stop every time they see that. It's a visual, right? It's a symbol, a word is a symbol, and you don't have to say it by sound. So the idea here is, if you reduce subvocalization, the need to say the words, you could read faster, because nobody could talk that fast. You can talk three times faster and linear. But you can think that fast. Yes. And then the last thing that gets in the way, besides lack of training, lack of focus. subvocalization is something called regression. So regression, have you ever found yourself accidentally rereading words or maybe reread the whole line? Yeah,

Brooke Schnittman: 31:31

we need to go into this real quick. And I'm so sorry to interrupt you, because what you have is gold. But this is more gold from what you share, right? Your 10 to 40 minute, optimal focus time for, we need to share that with the world. I already share it with my community, no thank talk about the regression after 40 minutes of reading.

Jim Kwik: 31:51

So there's something called the Pomodoro Technique. And the Pomodoro Technique says that after about 25 minutes, and it could be 10 minutes, 45 minutes is different for each person. So there's a dip in focus and concentration, it gets harder and harder. And the idea here is you work for 2530 minutes, whatever that sweet spot is. And then you take a five minute what I call a brain break, to reset, recover, right. And during that brain break, I recommend three things that are good for your brain. Number one move like it's we're sitting behind screens most of us all day. And as your body moves your brain grooves and it definitely helps could help people with ADD ADHD, sometimes they have an impetus to move in order to understand in school, it's unfortunate because the methodologies, sometimes making them sits making people sit still. Or if they are hyper after doing certain things. Don't let them have recess.

Brooke Schnittman: 32:47

No, it's like the worst thing ever. You have a hyperactive child who is in fitting into a box. And then you say, Okay, let me get rid of your recess.

Jim Kwik: 32:56

And there are individuals that need to move in order to understand as your body moves your brain grooves, so during that five minutes, I would recommend you stay sitting is the new smoking just just to get out. Ideally, outside if you can, nature is a wonderful way to kind of reset. So I moved my body number to hydrate your brain. We have a podcast or no most 400 episodes in 100 million downloads. We had somebody on there talking about Dr. Lisa Moscone, who's a neuroscientist nutritionist, he's saying that if you're just 2% dehydrated, it could significantly impact your cognitive health and your cognitive performance. And staying hydrated boosts your reaction time you're thinking speed upwards of 30% just staying hydrated throughout the day. So during your brain break, make sure you hydrate because your brain is what 75 Plus waters I

Brooke Schnittman: 33:47

hear at some times, but yeah, 75 Whatever. Jim, this is huge. Because first of all, a lot of our community knows about the Pomodoro Technique, which is amazing, right? Because that's why they know about it, because it's a great technique. However, we also deal with not wanting to take the break, because we're in that hyper fixation. And we're afraid that we're not going to get back from it. And I know you're going to talk about that. But also we forget to drink water. Because we don't want to stop doing what we're doing. So literally, we don't drink water, we don't take a bathroom break, we don't go outside all the things that we need for our brain. And

Jim Kwik: 34:29

sometimes even when you're studying your reading, you have your stress so you have very shallow breathing and the lower 1/3 of your lungs actually absorbs two thirds of the oxygen. And so you could go weeks without food. You could go a few days without water but you can only go a few minutes without air. And so the third thing I would recommend during that brain break is do some some breathing exercises. Because a lot of times we fall asleep when we're reading because there's some people are slumped over and again you're not getting the oxygen so you get tired and fatigued Yes. And so air, water movement, and all these are free, right? Movement, water, you know, sunlight for your vitamin D, you know. And so I think it's really important even when we're looking at the rise of some of the numbers, and I know you've done a lot of research in this area, I mean, part of it is just more awareness. Some people are getting tested, so there's gonna be an increase, you know, in diagnosis, but there's also, you know, over time they've changed the diagnostic criteria. Yep. Even Dr. Ayman, we had him on the podcast and he speaks at our annual brain power conference. He's saying there's like six or seven different forms of add seven now in his new book, yeah, heading on your phone, you know, like, and, you know, this has requires different lifestyle and treatments. There's also environmental factors, right, that may also play a role here's your external world affects your internal world factors like increased screen time, you know, changes in diet and you know, and some neuro chemicals that you can't even pronounce that are food exposure to environmental toxins from even something ubiquitous, like perfumes or off gassing from new furniture or new carpeting, mold, you know, all these can have an effect and contribute

Brooke Schnittman: 36:13

to the ADHD symptoms. Yeah, increase symptoms. Yeah. So

Jim Kwik: 36:17

and then social and educational challenges, you know, like modern day expectations, demand and social and educational settings can also exasperate symptoms, high stress environments, academic pressure, increased digital distractions.

Brooke Schnittman: 36:33

Yeah, Dr. Halliwell, you know, Dr. Halliwell is we've had on the show also, yeah, he's amazing. I love him. He talks about vast variable attention stimulus traits. And that everyone's attention span is shorter, right, because of the digital distraction and the shorter, you know, fast paced technology. But it's not ADHD, right. However, we can still help people with shorter attention spans with your methodology. Yeah,

Jim Kwik: 37:01

and a few things people could do or things we've talked about, like break tasks into smaller steps, small simple steps where a large task can be overwhelming, confusing, and a confused mind doesn't do anything. So breaking inch by inch, it's a cinch, yard by artists too hard. So breaking things down into smaller manageable steps is easier to start, it's easier to keep momentum using timers or schedules, where you're scheduling your time around your chronotype. Live Dr. microbrews talks about your time types, then, based on your your biology and your hormonal expression, will can also inform when you eat or when you sleep, or when you check your email. Right. So optimal scheduling times when you're at your peak mentally, it's not always possible. Yes.

Brooke Schnittman: 37:45

And we just re released his episode last week. So Oh, no, for your episode comes out the episode right before this will be Dr. Bruce. Yeah,

Jim Kwik: 37:55

so you can implement a time management techniques like the Pomodoro Technique, 25 minutes, focus work followed by a five minute brain break, you know, set timers and schedule it because we don't schedule I find like we can manage it. And then, you know, manage your environment. Because you want to Marie, Marie Kondo your mind you, when you when you organize things, like even on your computer, everything's in the right file folder, like it just right, you have clarity of thought. And some people focus better with music in the background, some people need noise, cancelling headphones, you know, clearing your desk of unnecessary items that could distract you using apps to help, you know, block social media or whatever. And then I think it's not just about time management for all of us, it's about priority management. The most important thing is to get the most important thing, the most important thing. So what we'll talk about in the summit, is things like the Eisenhower matrix, where you categorize tasks based on urgency and importance, but really focusing on the things then you can make a decision, you know, what are you going to do? What are you going to delegate? What are you going to defer? What are you going to delete?

Brooke Schnittman: 39:01

And this is really important for ADHD or is because our brains work where everything is equally important. So to take it out of your head and put it onto a matrix like the Eisenhower matrix, helps us see it and get it out of our brain and onto paper, which is so helpful. Yeah,

Jim Kwik: 39:20

even during the summer, we'll be doing certain physical exercises to help us to be present and focus. You know, the whole science called educational Kinesiology is like, you could take something simple, your hand or your elbow and touch and raise your opposite knee and go back and forth. Yeah, this brain balancing techniques like cross crawl or super brain yoga where you're massaging your ear lobe drops at hand, and you're inhaling squatting down, exhaling coming up. It helps integrate your left and right brain and can get you in a physiological state to focus better, right, Jim?

Brooke Schnittman: 39:52

Real quick. I know your time is limited. And I pun intended, real quick. The biggest thing that I hear from ADHD years is I don't want to do the Pomodoro Technique. I don't want to do 10 to 40 minutes, because I don't know if I'm gonna get this focus back. Yeah. Can you talk about? I mean, you you talk about Steven Kotler and, of course, the flow states, but can you talk about like, you're in a flow state, right, and then you have to stop. So what can we do about that? Yeah.

Jim Kwik: 40:25

So the quote in my book, limitlessness says life is letter C, between B and D, or B is birth, and D is death, life, C is choice. So we always make these choices. And one of the questions I asked myself throughout the day is this is this good for my brain, or is this bad for my brain, and it becomes a filtering mechanisms and what I'm watching or who I'm spending time with, what I'm consuming, what I'm drinking, is gonna be good for my brain or is bad for my brain, something really simple. Now, we do a whole chapter, and we're gonna do a whole session on flow states at this summit. And flow is a state where you feel your best and you perform your best. People call it like the zone, you know, whether you're musician, you're an athlete or a student, again, that place where three markers, you lose your sense of time, you lose your sense of self, and things become a little bit more effortless. Now, in order to get to that flow state, sometimes it takes more than 25 minutes. And so what I would say going to the power of choice is, you know, ultimately, we decide, right, these difficult times can diminish you, these difficult times can distract you, for these difficult times they could develop you, right, we decide. And so sometimes I'll set like I've, uh, if you're watching us on video, like literally Pomodoro timer,

Brooke Schnittman: 41:37

a real Pomodoro.

Jim Kwik: 41:40

You know, I took this from our kitchen, it just has a timer on it, I set it for whatever amount of time and I focus. But that being said, if I am in a flow state, I will stay often in that flow state. And but it's really everybody uses their own judgment and choice based on you know, what their outcome happens to be. So for me, I've trained my attention through meditation, other exercises, deep work. A one way of looking at as you're focused on is like a muscle, let's use it or lose it. The challenges. Often when we wake up, we flex our distraction muscles, right, we pick up our phone, every LIKE SHARE, COMMENT, ring, ping, Ding app notifications, just driving us to distraction and how you do anything is often how you do everything. So we flex our distraction muscles, we wonder why we can't focus in school or on a zoom call or with our kids or what have you. And so, you know, even starting your day, and like what I do, is I'll stay in bed, and I challenge everyone to do is tomorrow morning. So we have one of the top habits experts talking about during this summit, talking about how to create new habits and break disempowering habits. And one of the rules are you want to make first you create your habits and habits breakthrough, right? One of the rules is controlling your environment, meaning you want to you want to create an environment where it's easier to do the good things and and it's harder to do the things that are not so good for you. And if touching your phone is an issue, I recommend you not touch your phone for the first 30 minutes a day, then it's easier to put your phone in the bathroom. Right? So that's one thing,

Brooke Schnittman: 43:17

it just makes it easier like a hatch alarm or like a ride along like

Jim Kwik: 43:22

that. Exactly. So instead of grabbing my phone, what do I do is I stay in bed just I do this two minute exercise I would challenge everyone to do when you wake up the next morning, close your eyes and like do this mental experiment. Fast forward to the end of the day. And imagine somebody texts or emails you or calls you or your your family member asks you How was your day. And I want you to imagine you're just you light up and today was amazing day, it was incredible. We crushed it today. And then ask yourself what had to happen in order for me to feel that way. And I come up with three things personally, three things professionally. Like I'm my professional, this was one of the three things was was talking with you and looking forward look forward to this conversation, you know, and impacting the community, inviting them to our free event. You

Brooke Schnittman: 44:12

guys have to go? Yeah.

Jim Kwik: 44:15

So that's six things. And that becomes my focus. Because like in, in sports, you would know it's time to celebrate because the scoreboard shows you, but we don't have really set up a scoreboard for our days. And so I challenge people and they don't have to be big things, you know, big, like, on my personal side today, I was thinking, you know, I want to take the dogs for a nice walk, you know, and do that or take the baby out on strength to do that. And that's like a big sign that I know when I win. But going back to the power of distractions and you know, you're getting into that flow state, we make these choices and if I'm in flow writing, I won't stop but I will. Here's a little brain hack. You know, I'm working on my next book and I will go in the flow I will go beyond the 25 minutes if I'm coming up with great content, but here's the hack for the tip. And hack has different connotations. I'll stop in the middle of a sentence. Because when I pick it up again, I'll know exactly where to pick up. And I won't have writer's block. Alright, so I'll read part of a sentence alone, where I'm going, I know exactly where I'm going with this idea. But I'll but if I'm reaching a point where you know, I have to go out or run an errand or be with my family or whatever, then I'll stop. Even if I'm in flow. I'll stop halfway through the line. And then I'll pick it up when I create again, you know, and I'll have instant momentum. Right? Because Wow, are what am I doing? And Jim,

Brooke Schnittman: 45:45

that just helped everyone, including myself listening right now. I'm glad my My mind is blown. It's

Jim Kwik: 45:53

amazing. Amazing. So that's what we're gonna do is we're gonna pour into your community at this event, because I think a lot of people in your community, they, they like, they're the people that a lot of times people go to your friends or family, there's an issue or we're, but I feel like, we're not we don't have to make everyone happy. We don't have to fix every single thing. And part of self care has taken time for you, right? You're the greatest project you're wearing it to work on. So you have to take time and make time to create create magic. You know, so I think it's it starts with our mind and you change your brain, you change your life, you change your brain, you change the entire world.

Brooke Schnittman: 46:29

Absolutely, guys, I know who's going to be speaking at Jim quicks limitless Summit. And some of them have been friends of our podcast. So if you like our podcast, you've got this free Summit. Seriously, it is gold, my link is the limitless learner.com forward slash C WB like my company.

Jim Kwik: 46:52

Yeah, if you go there, and you'll see the some of the experts, these are people I learned from, from their research and their mentorship. And we'll go three days, and it's gonna be so practical, so powerful, it'd be a lot of fun also, as well, we're going to be doing giveaways and a lot of amazing things. I'll be teaching speed reading, memory improvement. And we have some amazing experts coming in to talk about brain health and sleep optimization, and changing your mindset and negative thoughts, and so much more. Oh,

Brooke Schnittman: 47:22

my gosh, so make sure that you get your seat, I'm telling you, I learned so much from Jim, and the research that he shares in his book limitless, I promise you, you're gonna get so much value out of this summit. And like, I'm still learning as you're talking now. I mean, that writing technique that you mentioned, that's huge. And I made a distinction about the reading, which I'm not going to give away the kitchen sink here. But one of the tips that Jim has about reading and sub vocalizing is almost like a secondary focus that you have for your first focus or reading with ADHD. And we love to pair things. So we remove the stimulus, like listening to a podcast while we're watching, you know, or we're watching our kids or washing the dishes or doing the laundry. So I know that this is for any everyone to expand their brain. However, a lot of this is ADHD friendly. So please come and join, I'm going to put the limitless learner.com forward slash cwp link in the show notes and we're going to be posting it on our newsletter. And Jim, I can't thank you enough for coming on successful with ADHD group,

Jim Kwik: 48:33

I want to thank you so much for having me, I want to thank everyone who made it to the end of this conversation, you know, and thinking about the 2x or 3x, right thinking about this journey, I believe that there's a version of ourselves that's patiently waiting. And I think the goal is we show up every single day for ourselves with some, you know, with some grit but also some grace until we're introduced. And so it'd be a special gathering, I encourage people to actually, when they read it, they could actually post it online or take a screenshot saying they're joined, tag us both on social media so we get to see it and put a link there. So your friends and your family, your followers, your fans could all benefit also as well in a while while spots are available. So thank you so much.

Brooke Schnittman: 49:18

Thank you guys, if Jim quick and do it with a broken brain. He literally had his brain break on a radiator, you can do it too. I'm telling you, these are so digestible. Jim, I could talk to you all day because I've been a huge fan forever. But thank you again for being on and I'll see you in two weeks.

Jim Kwik: 49:36

Amazing. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, bro.

Brooke Schnittman: 49:39

Thanks for listening to this episode of successful with ADHD. I hope it helps you on your journey. And if you need any additional support for you or a loved one with ADHD, feel free to reach out to us at coaching with brooke.com and all social media platforms at coaching with Brooke and remember it's Brooke Good with any Thanks again for listening See you next time