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

by Jim Kwik

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.

Drowning in data and rapid change, we long for strategies and tools to regain some semblance of productivity,...

second villain is digital d...

The fleeting ping of digital dopamine pleasure replaces our ability to sustain the attention necessary for deep relation...

villain is digital dementia.

Memory is a muscle that we have allowed to atrophy. While there are benefits to having a supercomputer in your pocket, think of it like an electric bicycle.

digital deduction.

The cumulative effects of these four digital villains robs us of our focus, attention, learning, and, most importantly, our ability to truly think.

If you are struggling to reach a goal in any area, you must first ask: Where is the limit?

Most likely,

you’re experiencing a limit in your mindset, motivation, or methods—which means that it’s not a personal shortcoming or failure pointing to any perceived lack of ability. And contrary to what we tend to believe, our barriers are not...

If our mindset is not aligned with our desires or goals, we will...

The second secret to a limitless life is your 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 purpos...

The second key is the ability to do w...

This requires energy, and energy requires something called energy management. The science of human performance is critical to achieving your purpose—eating whole unprocessed food, exercise, stress management, quality sleep, and skills at communication and building healthy relationships (and eliminating toxic...

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

Limitless is the prescription for healing our brains, reframing limiting beliefs, and upgrading our life.

Learning how to learn is the ultimate superpower,

In Limitless, Jim Kwik provides a road map for doing exactly this. Most of us are not raised with the tools we need, but Jim is generously sharing everything he’s learned in this book. Jim has spent three decades working in the trenches with people from all walks of life—students, teachers, celebrities, construction workers, politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists. He has worked with some of the most advanced educational systems around the world, training educators, superintendents, and students in his methods. His teachings truly work and can benefit us all. There is no pill for genius, but there is a process to get there, and you’ll find it within these pages.

What is your one wish? Seriously, if a genie offered to grant you one wish, but only one, what would you ask for?

Belief that you are limited might be holding you back from your biggest dreams as well—at least up until now. But I promise you that none of your beliefs truly constrain who you are. We all have vast potential inside of us, untapped levels of strength, intelligence, and focus, and the key to activating these superpowers is unlimiting yourself.

You’re going to learn how to unlimit your drive. You’re going to learn how to unlimit your memory, your focus, and your habits. If I am your mentor in your hero’s journey,

These were my mantras growing up. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t tell myself that I was slow, dumb, and that I would never learn to read, much less amount to anything later in life.

(as there was in the 2011 movie Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper),

For me, that was the worst—nervously waiting as the book crept closer and closer, only to look at the page and not understand one word

Those stories gave me hope that one person could overcome impossible odds.

They were mutants, they didn’t fit into society, and people who didn’t understand them shunned them. That was me, minus the superpowers. The X-Men were outcasts, and so was I. I belonged in their world.

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.

I possibly expect to do as well as others did? I was damaged.

I was too stubborn to give up and managed to move on from grade to grade, but I was hardly thriving.

Interestingly, during that research I came across multiple mentions that Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci each struggled with alleged learning difficulties.

I had spent most of my school life trying to shrink so small that I wouldn’t be called on in class; when you are the broken one, you don’t feel like you have much to offer.

“Jim, why are you in school?” he said. “What do you want to be? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? What do you want to share?”

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

years. I realized that I was trying to solve my learning problems by thinking the way I’d been taught to think—to just work harder.

What if I could learn how to learn faster?

books I found on adult learning theory, multiple intelligence theory, neuroscience, personal growth, educational psychology, speed reading, and even ancient mnemonics (I wanted to know what older cultures did to pass on knowledge before they had external storage devices like the printing press and computers).

(learning how to learn) had been taught in school.

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.

It was in that moment that I realized that if knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower.

ignited in me a purpose,

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.

What’s one of your dreams? One that is ever present, like a splinter in your brain? Imagine it in vivid detail. Visualize it. Feel it. Believe it. And work daily for it.

Just as you’ve learned limits from your family, culture, and life experiences, you can unlearn them.

What I have come to find over my years of working with people is that most everyone limits and shrinks their dreams to fit their current reality.

When you do what others won’t, you can live how others can’t.

You can learn to be, do, have, and share with no constraints.