In this episode, Jim Kwik explores how the thoughts, habits, and choices we repeat each day shape who we become. He explains why we’re always training our brains—whether we’re practicing focus or distraction, resilience or avoidance—and how small, intentional actions can strengthen self-trust and create lasting change. Jim also shares why protecting the first moments of your morning matters, how to move beyond the impossible standard of work-life balance, and practical ways to train your attention, regulate your emotions, and create more harmony in your life.
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Key Takeaways:
- How repeated thoughts and behaviors reshape the brain
- Why we become what we consistently practice
- How keeping promises to yourself builds confidence and self-trust
- Why protecting your attention first thing in the morning matters
- How small daily practices compound into meaningful change
- Why work-life harmony may be more useful than work-life balance
- How challenging your brain helps strengthen focus, memory, and creativity
- Why emotional regulation starts with choosing who you want to be
- How to structure your day around creating, consuming, and clearing
- Why progress and self-compassion matter more than perfection
Jim Kwik is one of the world’s leading experts in memory improvement, brain optimization, and accelerated learning. For more than 30 years, he has served as the brain coach to professional athletes, political leaders, business magnates, and Hollywood icons. His corporate clients include Google, Virgin, Nike, Zappos, SpaceX, GE, 20th Century Studios, and Cleveland Clinic, as well as institutions such as the United Nations, U.S. Air Force, Caltech, and Harvard. Kwik reaches over 200,000 people annually through live keynotes. He is the host of the acclaimed Kwik Brain podcast with over 100 million downloads, and KwikLearning.com’s online courses are used by students in 195 countries. He appears regularly in Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., CNBC, and Entrepreneur, and has been featured on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and Live with Kelly & Mark. Beyond his coaching work, Kwik funds Alzheimer’s research and the creation of schools in Guatemala and Kenya, providing healthcare, clean water, and education to children in need. His mission: No brain left behind.
Connect with Jim Kwik: limitelessdaily.com | Instagram | Facebook | X | LinkedIn | TikTok | and YouTube.
If you enjoyed this conversation with Jim Kwik, check out these other episodes:
The Three Levers of Change: How to Shift Your Mindset, Motivation, and Methods for Success with Jim Kwik
How to Harness Brain Energy for Mental Health with Dr. Chris Palmer
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Episode Transcript:
Jim Kwik 00:00:00 People think training only happens in a classroom, or maybe in a gym, but I think every conversation trains something like patience or impatience. Every setback could be training, resilience or avoidance every difficult decision. Either you don’t suddenly become like, say, disciplined. You practice discipline until it becomes part of who you are.
Chris Forbes 00:00:31 Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Eric Zimmer 00:01:16 Jim Kwik thinks work life balance is the wrong goal. Balance means equal weight, and nobody wants to spend as many hours at the gym as they spend with their family versus what they spend at work. He’d rather you think of your life as an orchestra, where every instrument matters and none of them play the same amount. I love that, and in our conversation, I added one thing to it because an orchestra doesn’t play every instrument at once, a piece of music moves through sections. Sometimes the strings carry it, sometimes they go quiet so the horns can come in and our lives work the same way. Some seasons work plays loud. Then it passes and something else takes its turn. His new book is Limitless Daily, a year of short morning readings, each with a two minute practice. I’m Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Hi, Jim. Welcome back.
Jim Kwik 00:02:10 It’s good to be here, Eric. Thanks for having me.
Eric Zimmer 00:02:12 Yeah. It’s nice to have you back on again. We’re going to be discussing your new book, which is called Limitless Daily 366 Keys to Train your brain, master your mind, and win every day.
Eric Zimmer 00:02:24 We will get to that in a moment. But first, we will start like we always do. And that is with the parable. And in the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. Think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? and the grandparent says the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.
Jim Kwik 00:03:07 Yeah, I think one of the big secrets is of having the life you want is stop feeding the one you don’t want. For me, it’s neuroplasticity and a parable. Neuroplasticity is the phenomenon where we’re remodeling our minds.
Jim Kwik 00:03:20 So the brain literally strengthens what we repeatedly use. Because if we’re telling it our nervous system, it’s important, right? And the brain really wants to be efficient. And so every repeated thought, every repeated emotion, every repeated behavior, it’s reinforcing neural pathways. So every day we’re feeding something not just spiritually but biologically. I repeatedly practiced, let’s say, gratitude. I’m not just becoming more grateful. I’m making gratitude easier to access tomorrow. I repeatedly practice resentment, compassion or fear. Those pathways become more familiar to us. I think the beautiful thing is that our brains are always listening. They’re always eavesdropping on those thoughts. And the question is, what are we teaching them?
Eric Zimmer 00:04:12 Yeah, I really like that as a way of thinking of it, because indeed it is true. We are shaping the structure of our brain and what happens. And I’ve joked in the past, because it’s like neuroplasticity is that word that shows up like in every book that I read to prepare for this podcast, I’m like, if I was going to have a bingo card, it would be on there.
Eric Zimmer 00:04:34 But that is because the core idea is so important that what we think about becomes more likely that we will think it again. I mean, that is just the fact that happens is really kind of amazing and fundamental, and it’s good and it’s bad news. But the good news part of it is we can always change.
Jim Kwik 00:04:54 And I think it’s good just to have this conversation, because I think the most dull change has to start with the awareness, right? We talk about in limitless daily, but metacognition that as humans we can think about our own thinking movie like The Matrix where neo, Keanu Reeves is going to see the all wise Oracle in her kitchen. I don’t know if people remember this scene. She’s baking cookies, but when neo goes to see this historical, it’s all knowing Oracle right above her kitchen door that he walks through. There’s a phrase that says know thyself. And as human beings, we need two things. We need the curiosity to know ourself. Right. That’s why people they go inside, right? They reflect because information by itself is not power.
Jim Kwik 00:05:39 It’s it’s the experience that we reflect on really turns into real wisdom and intuition. Once you get to know yourself and people do it through journaling, some people do it with therapy, some people use plant medicine, or they go on silent retreats, whatever the process is. But once you get to know yourself, like what you stand for, who you are, what you believe, your standards. I think the other part, besides having the cross to know yourself, is having the courage to be yourself in a world that imposes their expectations, their opinions. That Teddy Roosevelt, quote speech is been rent free in my mind for so long that it just talks about how it’s not the critic that counts. The ones out in the cheap seats is the person that’s in the arena that’s doing the work, that’s that’s failing, that has dust on it, on their face and tears and blood. They keep on showing up. And I feel like one of the things that we need to do in life more is to kind of show up for ourselves.
Jim Kwik 00:06:38 I feel like confidence is something that we earn by doing the things we say we’re going to do. If there was a lead domino belief or values like doing what you say you’re going to do and keeping those commitments.
Eric Zimmer 00:06:52 I couldn’t agree more. I mean, I often frame it as being able to make and keep promises to ourselves. And that is so fundamental in two really important ways, I think. The first is it’s fundamental because that’s how any change happens. Right. We say we’re going to do something. We do it. Change occurs, which is good. That and that’s an important part of it. But there’s another part of it that’s really important, I think, which is that when we don’t do that, when we don’t have the ability to make and keep promises to ourselves, and I do think it’s a skill that you could learn. It erodes our self trust. And that is almost a higher cost than whatever benefit we don’t get out of changing is that belief that we just don’t trust ourselves anymore.
Eric Zimmer 00:07:39 So Limitless daily is a great way of trying to bridge this gap, because what you’re trying to build is a small habit in people that is repeatable. So let’s talk about that. Someone gets this book. It’s got daily reflections like how do you go about starting to incorporate this and use it in your life?
Jim Kwik 00:08:00 Yeah, I feel that we become what we practice. That what we think and feel and do frequently becomes our frequency. And if we become what we practice, it’s it’s a beautiful idea, but also a little intimidating. Are we really shaping our lives ourselves every day, even in small moments. And I feel like we’re always in training. If people looked at it this way, we’re always rehearsing something, right? We’re either rehearsing mentally, rehearsing with our imagination failure. When I talk about memory and we’ve talked about memory, it’s more than just the stuff that I teach remembering facts and figures and foreign languages, client information, product information, giving a speech without notes, remembering names and faces.
Jim Kwik 00:08:41 That’s all very valuable. But what I want to do with this book is help people remember who they are, right. I have a one year old and a three year old and one of my 50s, so kind of started a little bit a different phase of life, which has been a learning experience for sure. But everything is possible with that mindset early on, like when I had my traumatic brain injury, when I was five, when I had learning disabilities, put in special education, not be able to read for it took me three years longer to learn how to read than the other kids. It really affected my self-esteem, my self-confidence, my worth. Right? And when I was nine, I was slowing down in class. I was being teased bad. I was always called slow, even though my last name really is quick. It’s not like my stage name. It’s my father’s name, my grandfather’s name. But the teacher came to my defense. Good intentions. She pointed me and said, leave that kid alone.
Jim Kwik 00:09:30 She was. She was trying to protect me. She said, leave that kid alone. That’s the boy with a broken brain. And that label became my limit because I didn’t know I had a word for what I was going through. So, you know, and adults had to be very careful, their external words, because they often become a child’s internal words. So every single time I was picked last in sports, which was every week, I would say, oh, because I’m broken, right? Every time I did badly in school, which was almost daily, I would say, oh, because I had a broken brain. And your mind is always eavesdropping on yourself talk. And it’s interesting because I reflect on it. Her sentence only took five seconds, but I continue that story for ten years afterwards.
Eric Zimmer 00:10:08 It’s amazing how that is sometimes. I know, I know just the smallest thing and it just it lodges.
Jim Kwik 00:10:15 Yeah, I called my book in 2020 limitless. And it wasn’t about being perfect, right? It was about progress.
Jim Kwik 00:10:21 It was about being able to be, do, have, share, contribute beyond what you’ve demonstrated or believe, maybe even even possible. But you know, at that stage, though, I felt I was limited. I think everybody feels a little limited in some area. Their happiness or their energy level, their focus, their learning, their self-worth. And so a limitation was that head injury that led to some serious brain fog and migraines and learning challenges. But I think the bigger limitation was not my brain injury as much as it was my mindset. It was like the limitation of the story I was saying about my brain injury because I was internalizing it and that, and I was saying that’s who I was. So what I do believe is that daily practice, that transformation doesn’t happen through just an occasional burst of energy. It’s been my experience and I train at all the big companies Facebook, Nike, Google, the US Air Force, the highest performers, the Olympic athletes, and amazing notable people that perform.
Jim Kwik 00:11:27 They didn’t work out over a weekend and all of a sudden they were just fit, right. They were always rehearsing and they’re always practicing and we’re always practicing. People think training only happens in a classroom or maybe in a gym, but I think every conversation trains something like patience or impatience. Every setback can be training, resilience or avoidance. Every difficult decision. Either you don’t suddenly become like, say, disciplined. You practice discipline until it becomes part of who you are. You know that one choice won’t define you, but thousands of daily choices absolutely will. Right? Duke University says that a 40% of our behaviors which yield the results in our life are habitual, like totally unconscious. And so I think having a daily practice is so very important. And I do have them practice in the morning. You have a lot of morning routine videos that have millions and millions of views. The idea here is if you want to win the day, however you define it, you have to definitely win that first part of the day because that sets your direction.
Jim Kwik 00:12:31 And when I was doing research for Limitless Daily in terms of when they should read it, not just what they should read, but when they should do this practice. Here’s something interesting that I think all your viewers and listeners could appreciate and use right away. Tomorrow morning when you wake up, there’s something called sleep inertia. And sleep inertia is the transition between the sleep state to a waking state. It’s kind of like, imagine you wake up and your computer is rebooting, right? And it’s totally clean, right? Nobody has opened up all your tabs or sent you messages and every kind of things that would take up your focus, the energy on your computer, the the memory. Because when you wake up, your alertness is coming online, your awareness is coming online, your focus is coming online. Your working memory is empty, like a cup, like nothing is filled. Yet in your short term memory, imagine like you’re waking up over the winter and there’s all this snow outside and it’s pristine and nobody’s running their tracks through it yet, or footprints and everything.
Jim Kwik 00:13:28 So anything is possible. But in that window, though, and that window could be anywhere from about 15 minutes to 45 minutes. When you first wake up. It depends on your circadian rhythm. It depends on what stage of sleep that you won’t come in like REM sleep or deep sleep. And we can talk about that. This is what it’s interesting. The mental inputs you choose to let in mentally right now window will have a disproportionate effect on the rest of your day, specifically in the area of what you focus on. It’ll influence your focus disproportionately how you feel throughout the day, and also how you frame just everything throughout the day, conversations and conflict and challenge and everything else. And it’s interesting because what is 95% of the population do within that first core, pristine, clear, full focus window?
Eric Zimmer 00:14:19 Check their phone.
Jim Kwik 00:14:20 Probably they do, they do. And then so what are they disproportionately magnifying in terms of their focus and their feelings? They get one message, like a text message or social media comments or whatever, and it puts them in a feeling state for hours.
Jim Kwik 00:14:34 Right? For like their mood. Right? What do they see? They see comparison, so they start focusing on comparison throughout the day. They see war or conflict or, you know, all the things that come with, you know, all the distractions of that. So we’re magnifying distraction and you wonder why you can’t focus with your kids, or when you’re at work or when you have to study for a test. And so the top achievers protect our attention more than anything. And I feel like it should be priority number one, because our life is a reflection of what we attend to. Right, right.
Eric Zimmer 00:15:05 Very directly.
Jim Kwik 00:15:06 Nobody would wake up Eric and invite in their bedroom 200 strangers to talk about whatever they happen to want to talk about that morning. But it’s kind of like overdoing when we’re picking up our phone and looking at messages and social media and everything. And so I think that’s a challenge because, again, just to be clear, what you’re doing is something in science called attentional priming.
Jim Kwik 00:15:25 You’re priming your attention for what’s important first thing in the morning during that sleep inertia phase, more than other times throughout the day, because your computer is clean, your whiteboard is clean. And this is the time. I always say my mantra for this is like mind before media. Mind before media, right? Intention before interruption. Direction. Set the direction of your day, before distraction. And on the positive side, what can people put in that window? Sleep inertia. When they first wake up, they can have a they can bond with a loved one. Right now we magnified they could do a gratitude exercise. I guarantee you people focused on gratitude. And I always tell people, if you want to feel wealthy, think about all the things you have in life that might couldn’t buy, right? Or what if the only things that you had to borrow were the things you expressed gratitude for today? Write some kind of gratitude exercise. And those are in one of the entries, right? Yeah.
Jim Kwik 00:16:24 Because I guarantee you, you primarily do intentional time for gratitude. You’ll see more blessings throughout your day because you’re activating your reticular activating system to focus on it. Prayer. Right. Gratitude. Focusing on your what the three goals are for the day. There are a lot of daily books write. Some pull on Christianity or Judaism or Buddhism, or Stoicism or limitless daily. In science, the science of the mind, which is psychology and the science of the brain, which is neuroscience. So every entry has a new idea that they get primed their mind for as a science to back up that idea has a little story, because we learn through parables, as you well know, and then has a two minute exercise that they can employ right away. And the reason why that’s important is because otherwise information just stays information, right. It never becomes purposeful or powerful because if you don’t act on it, what you feed grows. A lot of people, they struggle with forgetting because they’ll listen to a podcast, or they’ll read something in a book and they forget the next day or something at a conference, because if they’re not using it, then you’re telling your nervous system, your brain, that this is not important because you’re not using it.
Jim Kwik 00:17:35 What happens then? Then it’ll delete it, right? It’ll start pruning what you just learned and getting rid of it because you haven’t repeated it or used it. And so, you know, I hope people will read the book. So the whole book like page is no more than five minutes. It’s a three minute read with a two minute practice, and then it ends with a new identity statement. Yeah, around that specific topic. And I don’t think big transformation comes like you don’t go to the gym for a weekend and you’re fit for the whole year. You don’t floss your teeth for three hours and then you’re you’re good for the whole year. I think you James clear on the podcast. We had him on our show and it was like. It was like you improved 1% a day in some certain area. People think after a year that maybe what they’ll double that like their progress or maybe triple or maybe even five times, it’s actually 37 times. Yeah, it’s consistency compounds. And I put 366 days to account for February 29th up here, because I don’t want to give people an excuse not to practice.
Jim Kwik 00:18:37 And going back to identity and self trust when showing up for yourself first thing in the morning, before the world tells you what’s important and what you should focus on and the demands, I feel like earning that first thing in the morning is such a win, and it creates positive momentum. Besides the fact that it’ll get more people reading because after you do it for a few weeks, it’s not like, oh, I have to read this morning. It’s like I am a reader, right? Because you created evidence of showing up for yourself, and every single time you do, it’s a vote for who you say you are and you want to be.
Eric Zimmer 00:19:38 Let’s jump into some of them, because I would just love to give people a little bit of a flavor of the book, and there’s so many good ones. So what I thought I would start with is tomorrow’s okay, so I’m going to just read the first little bit of it and then let you talk about it. Okay. Here we go. Tomorrow is stop Seeking balance, Create harmony instead I love this. How do you create work life balance? What if you don’t? The word balance means equal except very little in life is equal. Would you like to spend an equal amount of time at the gym, as you do with your family, instead of striving for balance? What if you saw your work life like an orchestra to create a symphony? Every instrument plays its unique part, but they don’t all contribute an equal amount. Say a little bit more about that or tell me about like a practice that we could do there.
Jim Kwik 00:20:35 Yeah, I know what day that is too. So I’m pulling it up also as well.
Eric Zimmer 00:20:39 August 27th.
Jim Kwik 00:20:40 Yeah, this is great. There’s a really cool quick step here where you make a list of the important instruments in your work life today, such as your family or work. You’re learning, you’re playing, you’re sleeping, maybe exercising. And note which instruments might not be getting too much, or maybe too little of your time and focus.
Jim Kwik 00:21:03 And then what is one thing you could do today to create more harmony? And the affirmation for this is I create harmony in my life, I am limitless. This is something that I feel like stresses people out because of the phrase. How do you create balance or work life balance? And again, balance in the dictionary is equal weight and it’s like a balance beam. And that sounds like stressful to me, right? Just like the passage says, I don’t want to spend equal amount of time at the gym as I do at work, or do everything else. Not like I think of four things to focus on and I dedicate six hours to each one. That would be an impossible standard, nor would be practical, right? And so I thought of harmony because it gives you grace. Right? There’s some compassion that’s built into it. There’s a science to harmony, but there’s also an art of what you’re creating. And I think one of our goals as human beings is I’m a big Bruce Lee fan.
Jim Kwik 00:21:54 Her number reasons, but he was his goal was totally expressing yourself. You know the quote on my wall saying, the key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering. And when I talk about remembering, also going back to remember who you are, because I think Limitless Daily is a daily practice to remind you who you are and what you’re capable of becoming, and not taking away from who we are now. Like, I’m wearing a shirt right now that says that that you are enough and that’s a great starting place. But you remember who you are because memory is so key, not just, again, remembering all the facts and figures of names and faces and languages. But think about it. Confidence as remembered successes, right? Fear is often remembered. Failures. Wisdom is remembered. Lessons, expertise. To be an expert in something, your expertise is remembered. Experience. Right? And so memory is very key for everything. You know. It’s a foundation for all of learning. And when we’re talking about harmony, when people are coming in with their instruments, they remember how to play it.
Jim Kwik 00:22:56 You know, and they practice it. They don’t just show up, be able to do it. And everybody has the same kind of technical things, but they also bring a different energy, which is the art of creating something. So I feel like I could use a symphony, right, with an orchestra, or I could have been like using it, like creating harmony in your day, being a creative, and you’re the author of your story today, every morning it’s like getting another weapon. And imagine getting 366 reps in a year. You’ll be unrecognizable After a year from now, you’d have to reintroduce yourself to the people around you.
Eric Zimmer 00:23:30 Yeah, I love the orchestra a bit. I also love the idea of thinking about it also a little bit like a symphony, like a score or a piece. Because if you listen to a piece of music, it goes through different phases. There are phases where it’s like the violins really. There’s a lot of violin. And then there’s another phase where maybe it gets very quiet and things are different, and then there’s a period where it’s like you get the horns.
Eric Zimmer 00:23:58 And I think that speaks to the way that our life is, too. It’s like the sometimes this instrument gets played more than that instrument. Right. Like you’ve got a book coming out in from the time you and I are recording this about two weeks or so, less than that, which means this is a very intense time of book promotion for you. So the book promotion section of the orchestra is playing a lot That will pass, right? That will pass. And you’ll you’ll be in a phase then where something else does like for me. I mean, when my book came out. I mean, that’s all I thought about for a little while, but that passed and then the rest of life kind of re-established. So I love that idea of not just an orchestra, but a piece of music where different instruments get more priority at different times.
Jim Kwik 00:24:46 Yeah. And I think it’s great that we could choose moment to moment where we’re going to put our focus and our energy and our commitment into whatever we’re creating at the time. You know, it is it is challenging, especially because it’s summertime. And I did mention I have two young kids. And so.
Eric Zimmer 00:25:04 Yeah.
Jim Kwik 00:25:05 Sometimes the travel I don’t normally travel like this, but you know, but you’re right. You know, if you’re building a score, there’s certain instruments that I’m leaning into right now with the opportunity to be able to, you know, and I and but I was I was strategic because even with family I would make emotional deposits leading up to this, you know, also as well. And then, you know, when this thing is bookended, literally ending the book, but also the bookends of this promotional period for the book, then I’ll put more energy into other instruments. Yeah. You know, I know the people part of my team, my orchestra.
Eric Zimmer 00:25:39 I wanted to hit May 25th, which happens to be my birthday. And the beginning of this is move your body, change your brain, which makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, I often say that the most important thing I do to power the rest of my life is exercise.
Eric Zimmer 00:25:56 Like it is the thing. But there is something later on in here that I wanted to get to here, where you’re talking about. The Duke University professor and neurobiologist Doctor Lawrence Katz introduced the concept of aerobics and practicing daily activities using multiple senses at one time. Talk to me about those.
Jim Kwik 00:26:18 It’s interesting. I’m getting feedback from the ones we gifted advanced copies to. Like yourself that they’re hearing something that they maybe either needed to hear that day. Or put them on this kind of creative ideation for some content they made that day, or something that they shared with a family member that needed to hear it. I think as your body moves, your brain grooves, and it’s so important to use your senses. You know, let’s talk about the five primary ones that we become more sense sensual. But something happens, though, when we eliminate certain senses, or we just kind of kind of temporarily put it on pause. So like, brushing your teeth with the opposite hand would challenge your some of your physical senses.
Jim Kwik 00:27:01 Closing your eyes. Balancing on one foot. Brushing your teeth with the opposite hand will do even more. So that would be.
Eric Zimmer 00:27:08 A broken arm for me.
Jim Kwik 00:27:09 Right, right. So you want to be smart about this? Okay. We’re using common sense, and we’re being safe about this. But the idea here in aerobics is just like with aerobics or doing some good for you. Or you. Maybe you’re doing CrossFit for your body. This is like a way of doing CrossFit for your mind. Because especially in a world of AI where people are more and more are using it and they’re using it to almost replace their own thinking they call cognitive offloading. And so that creativity, you know, any muscle is going back to feed. It’s always what you feed, right? If you’re not exercising and feeding your thinking, your decision making skills, your creativity, and you’re asking AI to remove all the friction and do it for you, it’s like going to the gym and asking a friend to lift the weights for you.
Jim Kwik 00:27:52 Then you never get the benefit of doing the work and the analogy. Aerobics is like life. It’s it’s based on what challenges you will change you. So like with technology, like let’s even back up before AI. Like if you take an elevator to go to your apartment, it’s a form of technology, but then you don’t get your steps in, right? You don’t take the stairs. And so I feel like there’s like a little bit of a balance here. And aerobics is a wonderful way of challenging yourself. Eating with the opposite hand or showering with your eyes closed. If you’re safe, you know about it, but you’re challenging yourself consistently. Or you’re driving and you try to memorize a license plate, right? Not that you need to remember a license plate, but you keep your ability because isn’t it interesting, Eric, that what you feed grows, right? Like, that’s the whole parable. It’s. And it and it lives and it flourishes. What you nourish flourishes, right? Your beliefs and your thoughts.
Jim Kwik 00:28:46 But isn’t it interesting that if you want strength, you have to use your strength, right? Lift those weights. You have to do that resistance training. If you want energy, you have to use your energy. Like if you want energy and you’re sitting on the couch binge watching yourself, you’re not going to have more energy, right? If you want focus, you have to use your focus. You want better memory if you use your memory, you know. And so Nairobi is in that entry on May 25th on your birthday. It’s all about just challenging yourself that day, you know, and I feel like there’s opportunities to do that and not to take the easy, convenient thing.
Eric Zimmer 00:29:43 Eight years ago, I was completely overwhelmed. My life was full with good things, a challenging career, two teenage boys, a growing podcast, and a mother who needed care. But I had a persistent feeling of, I can’t keep doing this, but I valued everything I was doing and I wasn’t willing to let any of them go. And the advice to do less only made me more overwhelmed. That’s when I stumbled into something I now call this still point method, a way of using small moments throughout my day to change. Not how much I had to do, but how I felt while I was doing it. And so I wanted to build something I wish I’d had eight years ago. So you don’t have to stumble towards an answer that something is now here and it’s called overwhelm is optional tools for when you can’t do less. It’s an email course that fits into moments you already have. Taking less than ten minutes total a day. It isn’t about doing less, it’s about relating differently to what you do. I think it’s the most useful tool we’ve ever built. The launch price is $29. If life is too full, but you still need relief from overwhelm, check out Overwhelm Is Optional. Go to oneyoufeed.net/overwhelm. That’s one youfeed.net/overwhelm. I love what you just said there because it’s so obvious and yet so poignant, which is that if you want these things, you have to use them.
Eric Zimmer 00:31:13 And that really is true. I often think about this like sometimes I’m traveling a lot for work right now. You’re tired, right? Part of me is like, I just want to lay down and rest, which is good some of the time. I was sick recently, so I needed to do some laying down and resting. But then I was starting. I was like, I’m tired. And I’m like, am I tired because I need to rest more? Or am I tired because I have not moved enough? Right? And figuring that out is sometimes challenging. But very often for me, it’s this lethargy that comes over that needs to be sort of almost burnt out of me by movement.
Jim Kwik 00:31:50 Yeah, I think that the primary reason we have a brain is to control our movement, you know, and as our enemy, as our body moves, our brain grooves. When you move your body, you’re creating like dopamine and serotonin and endorphins, all these great neurochemicals that will put you in a better mood. I don’t know, one person has worked out and said, oh, I wish I didn’t work out.
Eric Zimmer 00:32:09 Never.
Jim Kwik 00:32:10 Yeah, like it just doesn’t happen. Yeah, yeah. I feel like that entry there was just a reminder for people, like, sometimes they just need to hear something in a different way, more validated with the little science for it. But then maybe that’ll get past get people to make a little different decisions, because I think every morning you have a chance because you can make a new choice. And we could choose to do hard things, deliberate discomfort. And it’s hard because we live in this comfort crisis, right, where everything’s optimized in the world around comfort. We have temperature control and lighting and cleaning like water. We don’t have to use DoorDash like you don’t have to even leave your home. You don’t see another human being for like days and weeks. But I feel like life is difficult for 1 or 2 reasons. You leave your comfort zone. Life is difficult, but you stay in your comfort zone. I think life’s can be difficult also.
Eric Zimmer 00:32:57 Yeah. In a very different way. Let’s talk a little bit about as I look at your book, it’s in different sections. And we are we are about to exit one section. We are in the rise section, the season of power July 1st through September 30th, which means we’ve only got a few days left. But one of the things you talk about being able to do over this period of time is learning to regulate your emotions. Talk to me a little bit about emotional regulation because it’s really a very important point. Oftentimes, the lack of ability to regulate our emotion is what causes the decisions we make day to day about what we do to become very not optimized or not even not optimized, just not good sometimes.
Jim Kwik 00:33:42 Yeah, that resonates for me when I’m thinking about laying out the book I didn’t want to do, like all January’s motivation and all February’s focus. And I just feel like after a few passages are definitely weakened to it. People are like, okay, I got this part.
Jim Kwik 00:33:57 As you mentioned, I broke it down in the seasons. Metaphorically, it’s like winter, spring, summer and fall because we go through seasons of life, right? Seasons through the year, our personal economics. We go through seasons of health. We go through seasons and relationships. So I organized it around that. I would say emotional regulation is is paramount because it’s like things go from your head to your heart to your hands. Often you visualize things in your head, but you’re not acting with your hands. I would check the heart, which is your emotional, the symbol of emotions. But you’re right. If we’re in a stressed state, let’s say like you’re you’re talking to a loved one or you’re having a spirited debate. Most people think, like, what do I need to say? What do I need to do to either win or resolve this or. But I think if we take a step back, it’s like instead of asking, what do I need to say or do in a conflict situation which fill in your conflict or your challenge? Financial whatever? No.
Jim Kwik 00:34:52 Step back and say like, oh, maybe it’s not what I need to say or do. Who do I need to be like if I choose to be loving this state regulation, right? Or I choose to be compassionate. Then the saying and the doing will probably take care of itself Organically, right? We are emotional creatures and we are social creatures. When we’re in an angry state, they always say, don’t send it that text or that email when you’re angry, because when you’re in that survival fight or flight place, it holds you hostage almost away from your common sense, your executive functioning, your empathy, your compassion, your ability to make good decisions within that stress state. So I think having some kind of practice, some people use meditation with some kind of breath to regulate themselves. Other people would have some kind of mantra that they go to. Other people also will just kind of shift perspectives and just say like, get curious. That’s kind of where I go if I’m being challenged or something.
Jim Kwik 00:35:51 Then instead of making a judgment or using the critic, I would get curious and say like, oh, what is this person like going through right now? You throw a pebble into Stillwater, you get a ripple effect, right? But you never get like a tsunami back and you never get under you like it always gives you exactly proportion to it. And I feel like in that situation, getting curious will lead to a greater level of calm and and self-control.
Eric Zimmer 00:36:16 Yeah. Do you have a morning routine that just stays the same, like every morning year round, whether you’re traveling, not traveling? Yeah.
Jim Kwik 00:36:24 Yeah. And I want to know yours too. Like it’s changed over the years. So people watch old videos of me when I didn’t have kids, I could spend, you know, an hour in a sauna and that kind of stuff, which I can’t really do now. Yeah. I’ll give you a few things that might be useful. And I would say I would copy what I would do for those listening.
Jim Kwik 00:36:43 I would think about the principles of why I do it and then make it your own expression, your own, your own art, your own symphony. I break my day into three areas, right? And I call them three c’s. In the morning. I always create, in the afternoon I consume, and at nighttime I clear. So that’s how I kind of segment my day. Does it always work out like that? Obviously not. I could have meetings during the day. Like there’s certain things, client things and things have to do for family. It was never that way. But it keeps my energy high because I’m not task switching like I’m task batching. Yeah. In order to do all my creative stuff, I don’t have to switch off and take time to refocus on something that’s not aligned with what I’m already doing. I also will make less mistakes if I stay one, you know, kind of lane, and I’ll have more energy because it takes a lot of energy to switch from creating to consuming, as an example.
Jim Kwik 00:37:34 So what’s an example of that? In the morning, I was right. For as long as I could remember, I would write first thing in the morning, because that’s when I feel like I kind of get stuff out. Things I dreamt about.
Eric Zimmer 00:37:44 Right after waking up.
Jim Kwik 00:37:46 Yeah. It’s always it’s always at sometime in the morning and I and so in the morning. And for those handful of hours in the morning, I’m creating I’m creating ideas for podcasts. I’m creating, I’m writing my next book in the afternoon that I consume. I’ll read guests podcasts, books. I’ll research do a lot of research for my next book. I’ll be consuming and then in the evening. So if I’m creating, I’m pulling out on my mind. If I’m consuming, I’m pulling it in. At night I just want to control it. Delete. Right. And I want to clear. So I could sleep. So what do I clear? I talk to my wife, talk about my day. So I’m kind of venting and get clearing.
Jim Kwik 00:38:22 I could do some yoga nidra. I could write down in journal what I want to do tomorrow, because I don’t think about it and ruminate about it at night. And so that’s my way of focusing now, focusing back on the morning routine. I do have something that works really well, and it’s actually why Limitless Daily was created. So I’ll mention that also. But I mentioned I write every morning and when my daughter was born, she’s one and a half now. She was born early and there were some issues, but when I was in the hospital, I was looking at my wife holding her and my two year old son at the time. Yeah. And I mention I write every morning. So I started to write. But instead of writing what I would normally write, like my goals or whatever it is, I started writing to my kids because I am in my 50s and I was like, if I wasn’t there 20 years from now, when they were adults and they were going through a hard day, what would they need to hear from their father to help them go through a challenging day? And I started writing, you know, Eric, about like distraction and overwhelm, but then also like fear of failure and fear for other people’s opinions, their expectations comparison, imposter syndrome, burnout.
Jim Kwik 00:39:28 And yeah, this emotional for me because I wrote it for them because it’s just like what I feed my kids. Everything has to be the highest standard. And so that’s what I embodied into this book. I didn’t even know it was going to be a book until I started sharing these notes with friends. And one of them was going through stage four cancer. And so much of that is mental, you know, mindset, getting through hard times, like, you know, what you feel about that, you know, situation you’re in, if it’s happening to you or it’s happening for you and so on. And he started just getting a big lift in the first thing in the morning, having more hope because he had, like a little help, you know, helping him through the day. And so I went back to the thing and was like, this could be a book. And I started adding the science to it, you know. And I turned to him as daily. Now, what do I do after I read that during the sleep inertia time, I’ll give you four things that’s free and doesn’t take a lot of time.
Jim Kwik 00:40:20 Ten minutes max. This is my morning routine. So after I do my reading now because I read this every morning also as well and have my prayers and, you know, talk to my family, then I go outside. And throughout history, like, ancient times, people thought that everything was made up of four elements fire, earth, water, and air. My thought was, I just want to get those four things into my body. So I go outside barefoot, touch the ground, feel grounded. Right? There’s an electron transfer and there’s some science behind it. But so that’s Earth. And then I get the sunlight through your eyes, which help you sleep better that night for sure, and reset your circadian rhythm. But the sun for me is fire. So I have grab earth and I have fire. I drink some water. We could lose up to a pound of water when we sleep through urination, perspiration, respiration and just staying hydrated. Embouchure. Reaction time. You’re thinking speed upwards of 30%.
Jim Kwik 00:41:12 So I have some structured water with some electrolytes. So that’s water. So I have earth fire water. And then I do some breathing exercise to clear out the that night’s like mental cobwebs. And I’m good to go. And then when I travel I could do it too which is great. I’ll have to carry like a big red bed or what do you know, all these biohacking stuff along with me. It’s just that’s all I need, you know, I can just go outside and do this anywhere.
Eric Zimmer 00:41:36 I think that’s great. Right now, what I do is I the first thing, I just head right out the door and I just take like a ten minute walk. There’s just a little loop near where I live out right out the door, a ten minute walk. Sometimes I’ll listen to music while I’m walking, sometimes I won’t, sometimes I’ll listen to something inspirational, just whatever I kind of feel like. And then I make coffee. And then mostly what I’ve been doing lately is I play guitar for a while.
Eric Zimmer 00:42:01 I’ve just been loving sitting on my patio, on my porch, just outside, playing guitar first thing for a while, and then I will read something that is spiritual. Usually for me, it’s usually a Zen book, and then I’ll meditate for, you know, 15, 20 minutes, and then I eat, and then ideally I exercise and then start my day. So that’s that’s the normal sort of pattern. I also in there, I will give myself a little bit of time, like we’re moving to Atlanta later in about a month. And so I’ll read like a Atlanta newsletter in the morning just to kind of learn a little bit about like what’s happening in Atlanta. So I’m not like super strict about like no media at all. But I really stay away from much of it, you know, news if I am going to do something on my phone. I try and be very selective about what that is, and I try not to check my email at any point during there. And some.
Eric Zimmer 00:43:08 Mostly I succeed, but often I don’t. I can’t help it. It just sort of happens, but I try and make it minimal and not be perfectionistic about it. But that’s what I’ve been doing these days.
Jim Kwik 00:43:18 I think that’s great because it’s just like self-compassion is so very important, right? Like, I’ve never seen shame create any kind of lasting happiness or transformation. Kindness is so very important. I think self-care is not just having a green juice or getting a massage. It’s looking at the mirror and loving that reflection that’s looking back. That’s been through so much, but it’s still standing, right. I think compassion gives us safety to grow, space to grow because it’s not perfect progress. It’s just like diet, right? It’s not like you need perfect all the time. Because I know some people are so stressed out about eating Everything perfect and pristine. Yeah, that I think it negates any happiness or health benefits because of because of that. So I think in having the flexibility of being able to do do good guitar, do some workout, sometimes you do it, sometimes you don’t be able to do this, then it’s, it’s again it’s going towards the harmony and the, you know, the notes we want to play that day.
Eric Zimmer 00:44:16 Yeah. I mean I really try and do that sort of 80 to 90% sort of thing. Like if I can do that and maintain it over time, that 10% really doesn’t matter that much. Right. Said differently, for me, fixating on that 10% will cause more harm than it does good. I’m getting so much of the benefit if I’m doing it 80, 90% of the time, that little bit in there just is just makes life more enjoyable. I mean, I don’t want to be stressed all the time about like, am I doing all the right things every day? All. Yeah, yeah. Like that’s, you know, but it’s easy to get that way. It’s easy to get that way. But it’s not really it’s not it doesn’t ultimately serve the greater purpose, which is to feel like I’m living a life that’s meaningful and feels good.
Jim Kwik 00:45:05 And yeah, I feel like everybody has a different kind of art, and everybody has a different taste for what they like to eat or listen to or anything.
Jim Kwik 00:45:13 And there’s the grace that comes from knowing that we live our life, you know, as long as we’re not, you know, hurting other humans and breaking laws or what have you, then I feel like we live our lessons, we teach, and I get to work with a lot of seniors and helping them polish off their memories. But I also learned a lot of wisdom because they have so much experience and life experience. But I also hear a lot of regret. Yeah. You know, like at that stage where people say something to like, they like maybe they didn’t pursue a relationship because of what other people would think, or maybe they chose a career path because their parents expected them to or something like that. Right. And it’s just a clear reminder. What you’re saying is that, you know, we had this one life here, and it’s just like, you know, when we’re taking our final breaths, other people’s opinions and other expectations are going to matter. You know what’s going to matter with the things that matter? How we loved, how we laughed, how we learned, how we lived. Right. Yeah. So I just feel like the most important thing is to keep the most important things, the most important things.
Eric Zimmer 00:46:15 I think it’s so easy to say and so challenging to do. Yeah, it’s a nice.
Jim Kwik 00:46:19 Filter, even necessary. When I had the opportunity to reconnect with, you know, and you know, or have you on, you know, talk about your book on our show. So it’s just for me life. Maybe it’s because the phase of life I am in with kids now, or maybe because I’m like, you know, 35 years of my career for me, and this is not always, but how I make my choices now I have this filter system. I say, if it doesn’t help me grow, glow or flow. I say, no. And you know. And it’s not I can’t do that for everything, right? Like, oh, do I want to pay my taxes and go to do all this paperwork or whatever? But for the most part, like here, like I want to be here because, you know, because I feel like helps me grow and helps me glow, helps me flow more than I did.
Jim Kwik 00:47:03 I say yes now, can we always do that now? Of course not. But I think sometimes there’s an entry in Limitless Daily. It talks about burnout and I reframe it. Just I could do about balance. And I say sometimes we’re burnt down. Not because we’re doing too much, sometimes we’re burnt out because we’re doing too little. The things that are lighting us up.
Jim Kwik 00:47:22 Habits and things that make us come alive. And it’s just just like these little reminders that people have a conversation by reading this book, do some introspection, have some intention throughout their day, you know?
Eric Zimmer 00:47:34 Yeah. And I think ultimately what you just said, there is the big piece of it. And I think this is where the book can be really valuable, is about just remembering to be intentional about what we do with our lives, because life just rolls right on by. It has a momentum of its own, and the only thing that we can do is just a little bit at a time, redirect and be intentional about what we do and what we think about.
Eric Zimmer 00:48:02 And this book is an excellent way to do that. And so, as always, it’s a pleasure to talk with you, Jim. I always enjoy it. So thank you so much for coming on.
Jim Kwik 00:48:11 Thank you Eric. Can I tell people to get the book?
Eric Zimmer 00:48:13 Please?
Jim Kwik 00:48:14 Yes. Yeah. We made a special site where we added some special gifts. And it’s that limitlessdaily.com, really easy to remember, limitlessdaily.com. And it’s a one year journey. You know, it’s not something you read and put on your shelf. It’s something you have in your nightstand and just a five-minute conversation with yourself first thing in the morning to kind of set the tone and the tempo of your orchestra for that day. And I want to thank you, Eric, also for the work that you do. I mean, these are important conversations, the reminders that people need because ultimately I feel like, how do we become limitless in a limited world? We have to do it together, right? But I think it’s just it’s purpose and connection, you know, and it’s something that I can appreciate the nature of the work and a reminder to everybody to feed and nourish the things you want, not the thing you don’t.
Eric Zimmer 00:49:04 Beautiful. Well, thank you, Jim, and we’ll have links in the show notes to all of where people can get the book and everything else. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.
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