Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life

by Jim Kwik

four growing villains that are challenging our capacity to think, focus, learn, grow, and be fully human.

The first is digital deluge—the unending flood of information in a world of finite time and unfair expectations that leads to overwhelm, anxiety, and sleeplessness.

The second villain is digital distraction.

The next villain is digital dementia.

The last brain-damaging villain is digital deduction.

The second secret to a limitless life is your motivation. Jim outlines three key elements to motivation. First, your purpose. The reason why matters. I want to age well and am committed to lifting weights and getting stronger even though it is not my favorite thing to do. The purpose supersedes the discomfort.

Limitless teaches us the five key methods to achieve whatever we want: Focus, Study, Memory Enhancement, Speed Reading, and Critical Thinking.

Often when you put a label on someone or something, you create a limit—the label becomes the limitation. Adults have to be very careful with their external words because these quickly become a child’s internal words.

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that if we never let our mind wander or be bored for a moment, we pay a price—poor memory, mental fog, and fatigue.

Forcing yourself to recall information instead of relying on an outside source to supply it for you is a way of creating and strengthening a permanent memory. When you contrast that with the reality that most of us have a habit of constantly looking up information—maybe even the same information—without bothering to try to remember it, it seems we’re doing ourselves harm.

“In a digital-first world, where millennials obtain all their answers to problems at the click of a mouse or swipe of a finger, the reliance on technology to solve every question confuses people’s perception of their own knowledge and intelligence. And that reliance may well lead to overconfidence and poor decision-making,”

Neuroplasticity, also referred to as brain plasticity, means that every time you learn something new, your brain makes a new synaptic connection. And each time this happens, your brain physically changes–it upgrades its hardware to reflect a new level of the mind.

Pomodoro technique, a productivity method developed by Francesco Cirillo based on the idea that the optimal time for a task is 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break.2 Each 25-minute chunk is called a “Pomodoro.” As you read this book, I suggest that you read for one Pomodoro and then take a 5-minute brain break before continuing.

The effect of primacy is that you’re more likely to remember what you learn in the beginning of a learning session, a class, a presentation, or even a social interaction.

The effect of recency is that you’re also likely to remember the last thing you learned (more recent).

The acronym FASTER stands for: Forget, Act, State, Teach, Enter, Review.

The key to laser focus is to remove or forget that which distracts you. There are three things you want to forget (at least temporarily). The first is what you already know.

The second thing is to forget what’s not urgent or important.

And finally, forget about your limitations. These are the preconceived notions you believe about yourself, such as that your memory isn’t good or that you’re a slow learner.

But learning is not a spectator sport. The human brain does not learn as much by consumption as it does by creation. Knowing that, I want you to ask yourself how you can become more active in your learning.

All learning is state-dependent. Your state is a current snapshot of your emotions.

Your feelings or lack thereof about a subject in a specific situation affect the learning process and ultimately the results.

If you want to cut your learning curve dramatically, learn with the intention of teaching the information to someone else.

One of the best ways to reduce the effects of the forgetting curve is to actively recall what you learned with spaced repetition.

You are better able to retain information by reviewing in multiple spread-out sessions.

Questions direct your focus, so they play into everything in life—even reading comprehension. Because people typically don’t ask enough questions when they read, they compromise their focus, understanding, and retention.

How can I use this? Why must I use this? When will I use this?

Mindset, which is the mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person’s responses to and interpretations of situations. Mindset is made up of beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes we hold about ourselves and the world around us.

When we take responsibility for something, we are imbued with great power to make things better.

Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we must be accountable for who we become. It’s about understanding that we are responsible for our assumptions and attitudes. And when you accept that all of your potential is entirely within your control, then the power of that potential grows dramatically.

Dynamo genius: Those who express their genius through creativity and ideas.

Dynamo geniuses are those we most commonly think of when we think of geniuses.

Blaze genius: Those whose genius becomes clear through their interaction with others.

Blaze geniuses tend to be master communicators.

Tempo genius: Those whose genius expresses itself through their ability to see the big picture and stay the course.

Tempo geniuses tend to understand the long view in ways that most of those around them cannot.

Steel genius: Those who are brilliant at sweating the small stuff and doing something with the details that others missed or couldn’t envision.

Steel geniuses love getting all the information they can get and have a vision for doing something with that information that most others miss.

So, when you’re examining the facts behind your limiting beliefs, be sure to consider two things: whether there is in reality any evidence to prove that you are truly hampered in this area and whether even that evidence was tainted by the noise in your head.

Fredrickson refers to this as the “broaden and build” theory because positive emotions broaden your sense of possibilities and open your mind, which in turn allows you to build new skills and resources that can provide value in other areas of your life.

He writes that everyone has the potential for genius, or at the very least, greatness. But the reason we prefer to believe that we’re either a genius or we’re not, or that we’re either talented or not, is because it relieves us from the responsibility of taking control of our own life.

Unfortunately, mistakes are not often used as a tool for learning; they are used as a way of measuring one’s capabilities. Make too many mistakes and you fail your test or your class.

Knowledge × Action = Power

When you combine purpose, energy, and small simple steps (S3), you get sustainable motivation.

SMART goals.

S is for Specific: Your goal should be well defined.

M is for Measurable: If you can’t measure your goal, you can’t manage it.

A is for Actionable: You wouldn’t drive to a new town without asking for directions. Develop the action steps to achieve your goal.

R is for Realistic: If you’re living in your parents’ basement, it’s hard to become a millionaire. Your goals should challenge and stretch you, but not so much that you give up on them.

T is for Time-based: The phrase, “A goal is a dream with a deadline” comes to mind. Setting a time to complete your goal makes yo...