Hi, this is your brain coach, Jim Quick, the author of the best seller Limitless, Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, Lock Your Exceptional Life. I'm so excited to speak at CreativeCon this year, February in Chicago. Just think about it, in a world that's changing faster than ever, creativity isn't a luxury, it's a superpower. At CreativeCon, I'm going to show you how to train the most important technology which is your brain. To think faster, learn deeper, focus better, unlock your genius that's already inside of you. Whether you're an artist, you're an entrepreneur, you're a creative innovator, your imagination is one of your greatest currencies, like it's true wealth. And you'll discover, from me, science-based tools to rewire your mind for creativity, productivity, and really limitless expression. Our session is not going to be just a presentation, it's going to be an activation because when you free your mind, you also free your art, your business, and your future. I can't wait to see you there. It's creativecon.com. You're taking the A and you're turning into an eight. Let's C-R-E-E-T-I-V-E-Con.com. And I can't wait to see you there until then. Remember to be limitless. Five years ago, I took a really big leap and I pitched Jim Quick, yes, the Jim Quick and his team to join our show, Get Obsessed. We were little baby obsessors back then and we maybe had five listeners, so it was a big leap. Jim and his team were so, so kind and encouraging, but his schedule was full at the time. Mika and I, you know, Mika, our favorite co-host here on Get Obsessed, we weren't deterred. Actually, Mika really encouraged me to manifest, keep manifesting Jim Quick as our guest. Through hard work, manifesting, and a little bit of luck, we have Jim Quick here in the studio. I hope you enjoy. Now Get Obsessed with Jim Quick. Hey, Jim Quick, you are so well known and everybody knows Jim Quick, the boy with the broken brain. What is one thing nobody knows about you or nobody's asked you? I know that's out of left field, but I just thought of that. I'm pretty much an open book, speaking of my love for reading. I have to do a lot of things that get me out of my mind, because what I do like a lot of people is very brain-y and I spend a lot of time working my brain, so I have to just do a lot of physical things. So that's kind of my happy place, whether it's skydiving, swimming with sharks, sparring martial arts, it's the physicality of it. So what I do is very mentally intensive. So I just like to sometimes get out of my mind and do a lot of things that kind of pushes my personal boundaries physically. If you were left to your own devices, you would be thinking all the time in a corner, reading books, just using that power of your brain all the time. I do that daily. I think most of us would benefit from spending more time exercising our brains, keeping them mentally fit, like people do their bodies. But for me, when I'm not doing that, I like to be physical and kind of do things adventurous and coincide with faris. I'm blessed to be able to speak all around the world and so when I go to Africa, to be able to go on safaris with animals in nature and go to Australia, swim with sharks and the skydiving and all that good stuff. I like to kind of do new things, kind of constantly challenge myself. It's important for me to feel like a beginner at something. And I'm taking pilot lessons because I want to, I think it makes me a better coach because I remember what it feels like to not know how to do something. And I think that creates more empathy when I'm working with students, helping them learn to read faster, improve their memory. It keeps me with a really solid beginner's mind. Tapping into the beginner's brain is so important. You lose interest in learning. You stop growing and then you're dying. I love that you do push yourself out of your limits like that. And speaking of that, just the age of AI is really fascinating and I know you added that to your new edition of your book, Limitless. As a matter of fact, as I use AI, I find myself becoming slightly dependent on it. How are you teaching people how to navigate AI and how do you help people shift from fearing AI to mastering it as an ally and not becoming dependent on AI specifically? Yeah, there was a recent MIT study that people talking about where they had students and some of them used AI for an assignment. Some of them used Google and some of them had to use just their own devices, their own brain, which is the ultimate technology. And they found that those that were fully reliant on AI, they didn't activate those parts of their brains that really helped them and they retain the information very well and lowered creativity scores. And so I think technology is a tool for us to use, but you don't want to be dependent on it. So I'm always talking about how important it is to take care of the most important technology, which is the human brain. But you're right, there is fear. Right, and fear comes often from the unknown. And for many people, AI feels like this mysterious force that's going to take their jobs, that's rewriting rules, that's moving faster than maybe people could keep up with. And I just feel like AI is not here to replace anybody, except for the version of ourself that refuses to adapt. I think it's here to amplify us like any technology fires in early form of technology. It could be used to cook food or it could be used to it could be it could burn down your home, right? It's just how it's applied. So for me, AI is more augmented intelligence. And it's there for us to amplify us. So I think the real opportunity is when we combine AI with AI, human intelligence, right? Your brain is this incredible technology, it has 86 billion neurons, these brain cells, over 100 trillion synaptic connections, that which is more connections than there are stars in a known galaxy. So AI is incredible at processing information. But we are the ones that give this information meaning, emotion, creativity, ethics, right? And I feel like that's what makes us irreplaceable. So I feel like that we'd have to fear being replaced by AI. I think the fear being replaced by someone who knows how to use AI better than you do, it could be a challenge. I think the key is to become a co-pilot, not a passenger, use it to accelerate your learning, use it to enhance your creativity, use it to supercharge your productivity, but not escape thinking, right? I talked about that in Limitless where I call it digital deduction. It's just a high reliance on technology to do the thinking for us. I mean, even think about simple things like getting from here to there, we're using our phones, but we don't have to exercise our visual spatial intelligence. And so if you're a student in AI, get quiz you, which could help you remember things better, it could help summarize things, they could explain concepts in different styles that you prefer. But I think it's our job to question, to connect, and to create. If you're an entrepreneur, AI can automate routine tasks so that you can spend more time innovating, leading, connecting, building relationships. So I feel like the mindset shift for all of us is to move from fear to more curiosity, right? AI, from AI will take my job to AI will take my job away from me if I don't learn how to use AI. But if you do learn, it becomes an incredible tool, partner, ally. And today, the future is like, belongs to learners, not just those who know stuff, because what you know today could be obsolete tomorrow, but your ability to learn to unlearn to relearn to adapt is timely and it's timeless. And that's our real superpower. You, as a learner and harnessing curiosity, how do you use and what do you use on a daily basis to build your business as an entrepreneur? And can you give us an example? For AI? Yeah, using AI. Yeah, we use it to, I use it to learn, certainly. So all the principles we talk about in the limitless, whether it's spaced repetition, whether it's personalized learning, you could, I use it for learning, right? So I, there's a new concept that I need to learn. I go to Kikot AI to summarize it and I can say, explain this to me like I'm a 10 year old, so I can build some kind of foundation. I use that as a creative partner. I have three books coming out the next three years, and I don't want AI to write it, but it certainly could help distill information, help you find research. We have a podcast, sometimes if the guest is an author, and I don't receive the book in time, I could ask them to summarize the book. I can ask them to propose questions, and I won't use them necessarily for main them, but it might spark an idea that I feel like I could tweak or edit or personalize. You know, you could use it as a focus tool. You could use it to be able to gauge, to measure your growth also as well. I talk about mind mapping or memory palaces and limitless expand it. I could ask AI to create a memory palace for me or to be able to create a simple story to help me to retain this information a little bit better. So there's so many different ways. And there's every one of our team is using AI in some capacity. In our programs, our educational programs, we have an AI agent that we've fed and trained in with all of my knowledge. So it's there 24 seven. So people call or text and get real support if they have some kind of obstacle. But yeah, I think the potential is really limitless. It's just it only has to do with our imagination. And so I feel like there's not a day that goes by that someone on our team doesn't use it for something to enhance their productivity and their performance. How hard is it for you because you are the person behind the magic curtain, you are almost like the Wizard of Oz training these billionaires, these millionaires, these people that are really changing the landscape in every sort of fashion and business and tech. And how are you retraining their brains to harness all the new technology, the AI? Do you have to deal with those brains differently than the solopreneurs or the people just starting out or is it the same roadmap for all of us? I mean, people see pictures of me with Elon or Oprah Gates or whoever. People always ask how we connected or how we bonded and we bonded over our shared love of learning. Right, you who especially reading, you know, leaders or readers, you read to succeed. If someone has decades of experience, they put into a book and someone can sit down in a few days and read that book. They can download decades and the days. So I feel like if they're at that level, they're already avid learners, but everyone still has unconscious beliefs, right? And when we're talking about mindset, that because it's also about unlearning old mental codes that keep us like stuck. If you could, you know, I think one of the most important things, that even drives high level successful individuals, you know, part of what drives them is this idea that they're not enough. I mean, maybe that's why they work so hard or so determined, you know, but if I could kind of rewrite one code, it would be this idea, I'm not enough. You know, this one limiting belief runs like malware in so many of our minds. And I think it drains our confidence, our creativity, our courage, you know, could show up in different ways, procrastination, show, you know, show up in comparison, the fear of failure, perfectionism. And I think this is kind of like the root bug of our mental operating system. And so part of it is helping people rewrite that I'm not enough to I'm more than capable. Everything is figure out a bowl that that you're enough not because you built something or dead something. It's just because you're not because you are. And then there's a world that exists solely because that you're in it, that you don't need to know everything to start, you just have to start, you know, you don't have to be perfect, you just have to be progressing, you know. And so I feel, you know, parliamentary code that I want to work with and from a mindset issue, like people stuck is curiosity over certainty. Stay curious because learning is the new literacy, I think, progress over perfection, that taking small little steps daily creates these, you know, big gigantic results over time. And then I'm a big believer in connection over competition. You know, I think collaboration is the real hedge in the age of artificial intelligence and, you know, technology and automation. And so, you know, helping people kind of, you know, process, you know, this, you know, belief systems because all behavior is belief driven that, you know, that yes, it's possible. Yes, that you're capable of it. Yes, that you even deserve it. Right. I love that all behavior is belief driven. I unpacked that a little bit. I have, I did pause and think about that. That's something I have to think about. Yeah, in order to create a new result in your life, right, the level of career, income, impact, health, whatever it is, you need to do a new behavior. And in order to add new behavior, we need a belief that says it's possible. How we say that your brain is like this, the ultimate supercomputer in your self-talk, your beliefs or the program that will run. So even people say like, I'm not good at remembering games, you won't remember the name of the next person in me, can you program your supercomputer or not to. So all behavior is belief driven. You know, Henry Ford said, if you believe you can, you believe you can either way. Right. My parents immigrated here. We live in the back of a laundry mat that my mom worked at, you know, they have many jobs and I feel like it's the people that make the shift. It's not a matter of resources. Like we didn't have education, we didn't have money, no network or connections, no money, certainly. But I think it's resourcefulness, right. And I think entrepreneurs, creatives, people that lead, they identify more with the thermostat than a thermometer, where a thermometer is reacting to the environment, you know, and but a thermostat gauges the environment, it knows the temperature, but it sets a new standard. And because of it, the environment reacts to you, you know, in the future belongs to those, those creators. That's good. Did you make that up, Jim? Yeah, I made that up. That's really good. Good. Wow. I hope it's useful. Do you use that all the time, thermostat versus thermometer? Occasionally, I think people learn well. We need to make that one famous. That's really good. Yeah, I mean, and we act like thermometers, sometimes human beings, we react to the weather, we react to how people treat us, react to the economy, we act to politics, right, but the truly happy and most successful individuals, they have a greater level of agency, right, you know, when they have a level of responsibility, and responsibility allows you to, when you're responsible for something, allows you to make it better, and allows you to be a more cause, and it gives you choice, right. There's a quote in the limit list that says, life is the letter C between the letters B and D, or B is birth and D is death, life is really choice, right. Our lives are the sum total of all the choices we made up to this point. You know, where are we going to live? Who are we going to, you know, be with? You know, what are we going to do? What are we going to focus on? What are we going to heed? What are your feeder minds? You know, and so I believe these difficult times, they could distract you, these difficult times, they could diminish you, or these difficult times, they could develop you, but we decide, right, because you're a thermostat, not a thermometer. Hmm. That's really good. Wow. Very good. I'm just going to travel back to the AI. AI, when it emerged, did that really interest you? Were you just immediately drawn to that, the new technology? Is that just how your brain works, that anything new, you've glommed to it, and you're interested in it, and you follow it, and I need to know about it because I need to be a part of the trend, not the trends, but the things that are going on. I'm not always an early adopter for technology. You know, I'm still old school. Like, I still read paperback, you know, books, you know, rather than screens. I'm kind of a minimalist that way, but I was not early, but I was, you know, but I also, I'm not, I don't fear learning, and I love learning. Clearly, AI is here, and so it would be kind of ignorant for me to ignore it. But I have this, again, I have this, not necessarily a love-hate relationship with technology. I just don't like the high reliance on technology, because I feel that if it did everything for us, then we would never have to build any kind of strength, mental strength. You know, if it's remembering everything for us, if it's thinking for us, then, you know, your brain is like, use it or lose it. It's like, it's like a muscle. But if I put my arm in a cast for a year, I wouldn't grow stronger. It wouldn't even say the same, right? It would atrophy, and that's what we're seeing, you know, with people's brains. So we talk about digital dementia, digital deduction, and so on. Technology is a tool for us to use, but if we're just picking up our phone 2,000 times a day out of boredom, then the technology is using us, and then we become the tool. I don't think that's really the goal. It's just like physical fitness, right? An elevator is a form of technology, but if your office is on the fifth floor and you take the elevator each time, it's very convenient, but then you don't get your steps in, right? If I have to go to the bank and it's, you know, eight blocks away, and I drive there or I take an Uber, you know, it's very convenient, but then I don't get my steps in, right? And so I think technology is convenient, but you shouldn't make it crippling, you know, at the same time. You know, you think a lot of businesses now, and in the vein of the topic of being an entrepreneur, don't you think a lot of businesses want us to become addicted to technology and become addicted and us becoming the tools as opposed to AI reversing the roles? There are a lot of platforms, including social media, like that are free, and if it's free, then we are the product, right? They're selling to advertisers and everything, and they, you know, the billions of dollars go into these platforms to behavioral scientists and really smart individuals, that their main goal is to keep you spending more time on that platform. You know, I especially very concerned about our youth and children on those phones. If you ever seen these videos where, you know, children, they take away the iPad and they're, you know, lost hysterical, you know, or you see some of these kids so addicted that they don't have the iPad, they're like touching a screen in their sleep, you know, because it's so wired there. And so I'd be concerned, and I just want to reinforce that we have choices. You know, I think one of the most important functions on our phone is airplane mode, honestly. And so I just try to do the best I can just, you know, to limit my technology, get out in nature, do some, you know, schedule white space so I can think for myself. And also technology, because the algorithms tend to be these echo chambers where you only, whatever you engage with, you see more of, and so you're only seeing really your point of view reinforced over and over again. And I think one of the very important skills for entrepreneurs and creatives, executives is having cognitive flexibility, right? Having this like ability, like kind of like mental parkour, where you know, you just jump in from one thing and do it into the next to be able to be nimble, just like physically, if you're more flexible, then you're more pliable, you're gonna get less injury, you know, and then you'll bend, you won't break. So I think cognitive flexibility is so very important, you know, where even with their opinions, when you're presented with new information or facts, you know, our ability to be flexible and then change our beliefs, you know, or our paradigm of the world. I think cognitive flexibility, like an example, as we all know, is like Kodak, right? You know, they were market leader, they had some of the most amazing engineers who were working for that business in Brown. Someone told me that they actually invented, you know, the digital photography, but obviously they weren't cognitively flexible, you know, and then became extinct, you know, and there's lots of examples, Blackbuster and so on, all of those. Yeah, so I think it's important to be cognitively flexible and, you know, and be nimble. And I think because of these are absolutely trained skills, but they don't teach you these things in school. So I think school teaches you what to learn, what to remember, what to think, but not how to learn, how to remember, how to think. I think those are true superpowers. Superpowers and D. Jim, such an amazing conversation and we are just at the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned for episode two of My Conversation with Jim Quick. This conversation is limitless. In the next conversation, you're going to hear an intimate talk about how he is raising his children in the age of AI. You will not want to miss it. You will understand more about Jim Quick and his brain and how he deals with those situations and the toughest job there is in the world, which is parenthood. Thank you guys for listening. Please rate, review and subscribe. Remember, you can manifest anything. Get obsessed with your life.
