This episode is brimming with transformative tips that anyone can apply. Jim offers a three-step formula you can use to STOP procrastinating and discusses the power of a positive peer group. He also talks about managing risk when stepping into the world of real estate investing and equips rookies with ways to combat high stress levels. Finally, he shares the “superpower” you need to fast-track your personal development!
Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie episode 344. My name is Ashley Kehr and I am here with my co-host, Tony J. Robinson.
Tony:
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie podcast, where every week, twice a week we’re bringing you the inspiration, motivation, and stories you need here to kickstart your investing journey. Today we’ve got an amazing guest for the Real Estate Rookie audience. We’ve got the one and only Jim Kwik. And if you guys don’t know Jim, if you Google his name, you’ll see him rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in Hollywood and business. Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, so much more. And Jim, which you guys are going to hear in today’s episode, is an expert in your brain and he’s going to teach you how to turn your brain into a more optimized tool to help you find success. And I get that it’s not directly related to real estate investing, but so much of what you’re going to hear will help rebuild that belief system that you need to take that step to become a real estate investor. And just overall, it’s going to be a really amazing conversation.
Ashley:
One of the big takeaways that Jim will talk about that I had for this episode is he’s going to talk about your problem of time management. And what he says blew my mind. You don’t have a time management problem, you have a priority management problem. And as he goes through why and explains exactly his thought process on this, I want you to start thinking about your own calendars, your own schedules, and what you do actually prioritize and make time for too. And throughout this episode, Jim will tell us little questions we should be asking ourselves as we go through. Then if you listen all the way to the end, he actually gives you a bunch of resources that you can use for free to get access to learning more about improving your brain power.
Jim, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us on the Real Estate Rookie podcast. We thought we would start off this episode with questions from our audience. So we let everyone know that we were going to be having you onto the show and we had several people submit questions that they wanted us to ask you. So our first question is from Amy Heney. How can you overcome procrastination? Jim, what would be your advice?
Jim:
Three things that move the needle to overcome procrastination. It’s for limitless motivation, and you could use this for motivating yourself to do the things you need to do that you’re putting off. And you could also do this for people on the other side to motivate them to buy, to motivate them to list, to motivate them to invest also. So it works on both sides. The formula that we came up with in Limitless Expanded, our brand new book, it says P times E times S3. P times E times S3. So let’s unpack that. The first thing you need to do to have more motivation and overcome procrastination, the P stands for purpose. I realize that you could have goals in your head, but if you’re not acting with your hands, you have to tap into the second H, which is your heart, which are the emotions.
And that’s really where purpose comes from. Purpose really is an emotional state. It’s feelings of excitement. Because I feel like if you don’t have reasons, you won’t get the results. So let’s say you want to remember someone’s name. A lot of people will forget people’s name. Being a memory expert, putting on that memory coaching hat on that motivates someone to remember names. Tap into the reasons. Ask yourself why. And that’s how you get your purpose. Why do I want to remember this person’s name? Maybe it’s to show the person respect maybe. Which is so important by the way, to remember names and faces in business. Because how are you going to show somebody you care for their future, their finances, their family, if you don’t care enough just to remember their name? So maybe it’s to show the person respect. Maybe it’s to close a deal, maybe it’s to get a referral. Maybe it’s to practice these techniques that they learned in this podcast. But remember reasons, rewards, and if you don’t feel it, you won’t do it.
And it’s not intellectual reasons. Everyone knows intellectually they should work out, they should meditate, they should prioritize their sleep, but a lot of times we’re not feeling the rewards that would come from it. So remember, just like how people don’t buy logically, they buy emotionally. Because we’re not logical, we’re biological. You think about dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins. We are this chemical feeling soup. So I would say the first thing to have is to really feel your purpose for doing something. The benefits that will come from doing that thing. Because sometimes in business you have to feed your business till it feeds you back. You have to feed it. Maybe you’re working a nine to five and you’re doing this, but you feed your business consistently until it feeds you back. But feel the results in advance and that’s purpose.
Next, you have to go to E, which is P times E times S3, the E is energy. A lot of people procrastinate because they’re just exhausted. We have a 10 month old and he’s teething and we’re not getting any sleep at night. He’s just like … We’re waking up five, six times a night. So it affects your motivation to do the things that you need to do. So you need to optimize your energy. That’s why in Limitless Expanded, we talk about the best brain foods for energy, mental energy. We talk about how to manage your stress. It’s very tactical things, science-based, because stress takes a lot of energy. We talk about how to optimize your sleep and supplements that give you energy. So that’s just really nailing down the energy because an exhausted mind doesn’t do anything. And then finally, you could have limitless purpose. You could feel it and you have energy to act on it, and you could still not perform. You could still procrastinate because often the third reason people procrastinate besides lack of purpose or feeling purpose and lack of energy is maybe they have a goal that’s just too big.
They want to build their portfolio, make a certain amount of income and get 100,000 followers or whatever. And S3 are small, simple steps. Realize that a confused mind doesn’t do anything. Just like a confused buyer doesn’t anything. So how do you make it super, super simple? By breaking it down. So maybe let’s say exercise is really good for your brain performance. You create brain derived neurotropic factors, BDNF. But if you’re not exercising, maybe a small simple step is putting on your running shoes. Maybe people see me social media with Oprah or Elon or something like that and people always ask how we connected. We bonded over books. You read to succeed. Leaders are readers. Warren Buffet reads 500 pages a day. Because knowledge today is not only power, knowledge is profit, but if you’re not reading 30 minutes a day, maybe it’s because you ate a big processed meal and you lack energy or you don’t feel the rewards that come for purpose. Or maybe it’s just too big of a habit change for somebody and maybe a small simple step. Opening up a book is a small, simple step. Reading one line in a book is a small, simple step.
How you find your small simple step, this is the magic question. We could turn this into a little masterclass where everyone could write this down. What is the tiniest action that I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal and where I can’t fail? What is the tiniest action I could do right now, operative word is now, where it gives me progress towards this goal, it’s going to be closer to this goal, where I can’t fail. It takes very little energy and effort to be able to do it.
We have our own podcast, 400 plus episodes, 20 minutes each. Recent episode was with a biological dentist talking about how your oral hygiene, your oral health can lead to better brain health. And if you’re not flossing or your kids aren’t flossing, maybe get them to floss one tooth. Because nobody’s going to stop at one tooth, but the idea here is inch by inch, it’s a cinch, yard by yard is just way too hard. So those are the three areas that I would suggest putting your energy and focus. And then once you’re doing that, it just becomes second nature and you start to develop momentum. So yeah, break it down little by little, a little becomes a lot because consistency compounds just like money.
Tony:
Jim, so many good little nuggets in there. I’ve got so many notes I was scribbling as you were talking. First, I just want to talk about … You talked about the fitness thing and just waking up and putting on your running shoes. I’ve competed in a few amateur bodybuilding competitions, and one of the worst parts was getting up every morning to do 60 minutes of cardio. And I never focused on the 60 minutes of cardio. My thing was just get up and brush my teeth. And if I could make it to the sink to brush my teeth, there was a 99% chance I’d make it downstairs to get on the treadmill and do the cardio. So I love that idea of finding that small step that leads towards that bigger action.
I want to circle back though to the purpose piece. Because I feel like purpose, it’s a heavy word, and a lot of people float through life without really identifying a true purpose. And you touched on it a little bit, but say that I’m someone who’s just feeling a little lost or a little stuck just in general. What steps should someone in that position take to get some clarity on what their purpose is in life?
Jim:
Okay. Life purpose, I was thinking about a little bit differently. For this I was thinking about purpose for working out and purpose for reading or purpose for micro things. But certainly you could tie things to your life purpose. And we have a whole chapter in the book about finding your purpose. People use words interchangeably, and I find it kind of fascinating. People will say passion and purpose and they’ll feel like it’s the same thing, but for me, it’s very distinctive. Passion for me … And I relate it to purpose, how it’s related to purpose. Passion for me is something that lights you up. So Ashley, Tony, you might have something or lots of things that lights you up. And for me, learning is something that lights me up. It didn’t always. I had struggles in this area. I had a traumatic brain injury. I was labeled broken. Took me years longer to learn how to read after my accident when I was five years old. I was in special education, all of that.
But learning, eventually it became my purpose, my passion. So passion is what lights you up. For me, purpose is how you use your passion to light somebody else up. So maybe somebody is really passionate about real estate and their purpose … So learning is what lights me up. Teaching people how to learn is my purpose. To light other people up as my example. Brain optimization is a passion of mine. It just lights me up. And teaching people how to optimize their brain lights them up. So that’s my purpose. So I would say that giving yourself enough stimulus to see where your passions flow, and then how can you use your passions to light other people up. Maybe your passion is music and your purpose is performing for other people to light them up with your music.
And some people’s passion could be real estate or some aspect of real estate. And maybe going out there and performing that is more of your purpose. And so for me, it’s not necessarily easy, but I think it’s pretty simple. You know what I mean? Working out every day is not necessarily easy, but it’s pretty simple and straightforward. And so for me, another way of finding your purpose is to ask purpose-driven questions and tying it into your values. Meaning a great question everybody could ask themselves right now is what’s most important to me in life? What’s most important to me in a relationship? What’s most important to me in a career? And it’s different for every single person. It’s individual for every single person. And so I would say if your purpose for life is growth, contribution, having fun and adventure, it’s different than somebody who has their values in life is security and safety.
So other people could really value adventure and other people could value safety and those two people are going to invest differently. They’re going to do different things with their money, with their time. And imagine these two people are married. That’s going to be very different. And even in a relationship, finding the values you have in a relationship. Some people value, trust, loyalty, kindness, but everyone values something a little bit different and so there’s a hierarchy of the things that we value. So for me, my life values are love, growth, contribution, a sense of adventure and joy. And so I make my decisions based on that. And I feel like part of success is having the curiosity to know yourself. It’s why people go to therapy or they meditate or they do introspection and reflection and journal. But then part of it is once you have the curiosity to know yourself, having the courage to be that person is another game entirely.
Because a lot of people are scared of other people’s opinions, other people’s expectations. And so yeah, I would say purpose is something that is how you could use your passions to light other people up. And so just keep it there. And if you’re not really sure, what are the things that light you up and what are the things that also you can’t stand? You could also find purpose through things that really just aggravate the heck out of you, and then maybe it reveals itself in that context also as well.
Tony:
Yeah, Jim, so many good things there. I love the phrase curiosity to know yourself. I’ve never heard it phrased that way, but I think for so many people, they probably never really take the time to get to know themselves on that deep of a level. And we’re all just, I guess have these surface level relationships with ourselves. So I love that phrase curiosity to know yourself. But tying it back to just like our rookies that are listening, I think a common misconception that a lot of new real estate investors struggle with as they step into this space is they’re looking for real estate to be the end all be all for them, when really the real estate investing is just a vehicle for you to live out your passion, your purpose, and whatever that is.
So I think folks don’t need to put as much pressure on themselves to find all the fulfillment inside of real estate investing, but just get that business to a point where it allows you to do the things you’re passionate about. And Jim, that actually ties really nicely into our next question here from Tiffany O. And Tiffany’s question is, for people who have talents and passions in multiple areas, and she lists out real estate investing, content creation, music, et cetera, and wants to unleash all of those in life, how do you know which one to put your full and whole focus on first? Do you focus on one or two at a time until you’ve reached a satisfaction point and then move on to the next? Or do you attack them simultaneously?
Jim:
Yeah. Everybody has a different brain type. And one of the things I’m really excited about this new book is there’s a chapter on there on cognitive types. And I realize after coaching for over 30 years that everybody learns a little differently. Everyone leads differently, everyone thinks a little bit differently. And we found four buckets. We call them brain animals. And we created a quiz in the book. People could also access it online at mybrainanimal.com. It takes four minutes to go through. You don’t buy anything. Just like there’s personalized medicine based on your genetics and personalized nutrition based on your microbiome. Well, this is kind of like your personalized learning. And once you understand, going back to knowing yourself, there’s this … I don’t know if you two saw Matrix, but when Neo walks in and meets the oracle for the first time in her kitchen, there’s a sign right above the door and it translates know thyself, which is such an important part to get out of the Matrix and just into your power.
And so this will allow you to know a little bit more about yourself. And we have these animals that we could talk about in this conversation and it informs how you approach things and it informs whether you multitask or you just focus on one single thing at a time. And so there’s different … I mean certainly we give people advice, but I also know ultimately the best coach is self-coaching. And when you know yourself … Because not every even diet is for everybody. Some people are allergic to certain foods or they just can’t digest it or it just doesn’t agree with them. And same thing with that is other people like to learn differently and buy differently, think differently, and also perform differently. Some people like to focus on just one single thing. That’s their way. Other people like to do multiple things in parallel and be more of a jack of all trades and be passionate about all those things.
And again, who am I to decide what would be absolutely best for an individual? But I would see if you’re making progress, that would be the test. Limitless, which is the name of the book, it’s not about being perfect, it’s about advancing and progressing beyond what you believe is possible. So progress I feel like is the name of the game. If I was to ask everybody, if your life was exactly the same as it is five years from now, would you be happy? And for most people they wouldn’t because growth makes people happy. Making progress makes you happy.
And so if you’re able to manage lots of different passions and purposes in your life, then by all means, if that’s your brain type, run with it. And I know so many people that get attracted to the next shiny thing and they love ideas and they love new opportunities and they stick with it for a couple of weeks and then their motivation falters and plateaus and then they move on to something else also as well. So I would say not everything’s for everybody, not everybody’s for everything. Everyone’s a little bit different. But as you do it, judge it by results. And that’s ultimately the investing game. You’re always getting feedback. You make mistakes, which we all do, but there’s no such thing as failure. There’s only failure to learn something and those mistakes become stepping stones to get us to the next level.
Ashley:
I think a couple of things you just said there really relate to a new real estate investor, a rookie. As far as the shiny object, every episode they’re hearing of new and different ways to actually invest in real estate, and it is hard to stay focused on that. But one thing I want to ask about is, you talked about identifying yourself, figuring out who you are, and then also working on your weaknesses. How do you identify what your weaknesses are? There’s the common ones such as I know I should go to the gym every day. I don’t. But what about weaknesses in your business or weaknesses that may not be as apparent to you? What are steps you can take to actually identify them?
Jim:
I feel like all success is about skill development. A big part of it. Meaning that if you want to create a new result in your life, you need to do a new behavior. And in order to have new behavior, you need training to be able to do that. That’s why people listen to your podcast, they go through courses, they read lots of books. And there are all kinds of assessments online. Strength finder assessments and tools that could help you. Going back to the power of knowing yourself because I think self-awareness is definitely a superpower. And there’s this different approach. Again, some people lean in all in their strengths. Other people, they focus on their weaknesses, they try to level up their weaknesses. For me, once I see the areas where I’m not progressing or I don’t have a natural adaptation to pick up this skill, I have to make a decision.
And I feel like we could do anything, but we can’t do everything. And that’s where I either delete, I delay, or I delegate. If I’m not going to do something, I have to either delete it off my to-do list, I have to delay it and schedule it for another time, or I have to delegate it to somebody else. Maybe a vendor or maybe somebody else on my team or some people eventually they could hire an assistant to be able to support them. But in terms of weakness, in order to create a result, if you don’t have the skill development to be able to do that result, then I feel like that’s a weakness. You want to create a result which is sales or more income or whatever it is. And if you feel like you’re not a good salesperson because you’re not getting the result … If you’re acting on it. Some people don’t have the sales because they’re not motivated going back to the conversation we had about motivation.
But if they’re actually doing something like a method and they’re not getting the result, then they have to upgrade that method through training, discipline, deep work. And if it’s not coming really easy with them, then they have to make a decision, which means should I put more energy and effort into this weakness? Or is there a way that I could get support and build my team where somebody … It’s getting the right people. Building a team is getting the right people on the bus, getting the wrong people off the bus, making sure the people on the bus are sitting in the right seats, meaning they have the right roles and responsibilities. And I think that’s where this brain assessment comes in, because once you know how people think … One of the animals is an elephant who’s highly empathetic when you take this quiz. And we found that our whole customer support team, they’re all elephants. And we didn’t plan it that way. It’s just people go with their strengths and they find roles that allow them to use their powers. And I find this self-awareness is very important, but also the awareness of the people around you. Even the brain type of your potential prospect or a client or an investor. They would operate differently based on the way that they think and learn and perform. So these four brain types I find are super, super helpful and critical.
Ashley:
As a new real estate investor, a big piece of getting started is risk management and just stress overall. So do you have some advice for somebody who’s maybe working a W-2 job, they haven’t taken a lot of risk for themselves financially, and now they’re about to invest their life’s savings? What is your advice for stress management when taking these kinds of risks?
Jim:
Risk mitigation is so important because when we’re stressed, we just don’t make good decisions. Chronic stress will shrink the human brain. When you’re stressed, you’re in a state of sympathetic fight or flight. When we’re under anxiety, we feel like we’re being threatened because stress is that kind of response to fear. And what I would say is … See, I have this idea that life is difficult for one of two reasons. Either because we’re leaving our comfort zone, life is difficult. We’re playing and practicing at the edge of our limits, life gets tough. Or life is difficult not only when we’re leaving our comfort zone, sometimes life is very difficult that we stay in our comfort zone. Because if nothing changes, nothing changes. And the comfort zone is a nice place to visit. The challenge is nothing grows in the comfort zone. And so if people have a decent amount of risk tolerance, in order to get a new result, you have to do a new thing. In order to do a new thing, then it could be threatening because it’s unknown.
And generally people are afraid and fearful of the unknown and uncertainty. And anybody who’s achieved anything had to do something that took a little risk. Because if you’re safe, you’re not going to do the things that allow you to expand. And if you want your business to grow, your bank account to grow, then you need to grow. But it takes energy, it takes attention, it takes an immense amount of effort, and you have to choose your hard. Being broke is hard and going out there and doing something brand new, in this case, real estate investing, is hard, if we’re honest. We choose what’s hard. Being sick and tired is hard and going to the gym and planning your meals and prioritizing, that could be hard. But we choose our hard. And so I admire people who make the choice and ultimately it’s their choice. Because I do believe in agency in terms of people’s personal responsibility. My whole thing is just I ask that people just don’t complain about it if they’re not doing anything about it. That’s specifically my own view.
Tony:
Jim, I got to get you to talk to my 15, almost 16 year old son about what you just said because he and I have had some similar conversations about you can’t be mad for the work that you didn’t do. And he’s having a little bit of a hard time grasping that. But I want to circle back. I love what you said about to get new results, you have to get new behaviors, which oftentimes requires coaching. I think there’s one additional element to that. I’m curious what your thoughts are, and for you too Ash, but I feel like the fourth piece would be community. Because so much of our beliefs I think are tied to the people that we surround ourselves with and if our community that we’re currently a part of thinks that financial freedom is risky, if our current community believes that investing in real estate is risky, if our current community believes that building that business is risky, inherently we start to adopt those mindsets. So I guess Jim, what are your thoughts on the role that community plays in that behavior transformation as well?
Jim:
Yeah. We talk about 10 tenets to optimize your brain. The best foods and sleep and stress management. Very tactical, very science-based. And the book is full of those things. One of them happens to be a positive peer group. Community. Who we spend time with is who we become. We’ve heard the phrase in the self-development performance industry for a long time that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And if you spend time with nine broke people, you’re likely to be number 10. And the science behind it is interesting because you have something called mirror neurons, and these are things where they imitate. It allows you to imitate people, mostly unconsciously. And I always tell people, watch, W-A-T-C-H, and I use a lot of acronyms because they’re short forms ways, mnemonic ways of remembering something quick. So just remember watch. The things that we’re mirroring and imitating from the people in our community.
The W stands for words. We tend to use the same language as the people around us. The same slang as the people around us. And those words have a big impact on our beliefs and our thoughts. The A in watch are our actions. We tend to behave the same way as the people around us. If all our friends are investing, then we’re more likely to invest. If our friends are smoking, we’re more likely to smoke or drinking, we’re more likely to drink. If they go to the gym, we’re more likely to go to the gym. We model the behaviors of the people around us, our community. The T in watch are our thoughts. And this is very important because we tend to have the same limiting beliefs as the people around us because we pick them up in conversations and just through osmosis. At events, people see me do … I don’t know. We’ll pass around a microphone to the audience and maybe 100 people introduce themselves and I’ll memorize all their names or they’ll challenge me in some way like that.
And I always tell people, “I don’t do this to impress you, I do this to express to you what’s possible. Because the truth is all of you could do this and a whole lot more. We just weren’t taught.” There are no classes and class called memory. Just like there’s no classes on how to focus and all the things that we teach in this book. That being said, people at events will often come to me and say, “Jim, I know you’re a memory expert. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m just not smart enough. I can’t do this. I can’t invest. I can’t make money like everybody.” I always say, “Stop.” If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limits, they’re yours. Your brain is this incredible supercomputer, and your self-talk is 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 of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to.
Now, remembering names is so important in business. Again, because how are you going to show somebody you’re going to care for them if you don’t care enough just to remember their name? Number one business etiquette, networking skill there is. But going back to imitation, we tend to have the same … Also besides thoughts, the C in watch is character. We tend to have the same level of integrity of the people around us. If they don’t have a lot of integrity, we have the same morals as the people we spend time with. And the last thing are habits. The H in watch is the habits. First we create our habits, then our habits create us. But we tend to have the same habits as the people around us also as well.
So yeah, I think a positive peer group is essential. I think on the alternate side, sometimes our family and friends, we can love them, but they don’t have to be our peer group. You know what I mean? A peer group is somebody who has influence on how you think and how you act and how you feel about yourself. And family, they could be well-intentioned, but sometimes they could be sincere but sincerely wrong. And they could be well-intentioned, meaning maybe they don’t want you to get involved in this project or this investment because they don’t want you to get hurt or they don’t want you to get your hopes up. Maybe they see you growing because you’re always listening to podcasts or reading books and going to conferences. And unconsciously they don’t want to lose you because you’re growing and making progress and they have a fear that you’re going to abandon them or something like that.
But I’m saying you could love your family and friends, but you could choose your peer group. You could create a book club, you could create an accountability group. You could create people that hold you to a higher standard for yourself. Because we know that’s going to greatly affect not just our methods that we’re going to use, but also our mindset and our motivation. If we’re around people that are driven all the time, it’s just like you got to be driven because by contrast, you’re going to feel like you don’t fit in. And human beings, when we talk about community, everybody wants to belong. So I think it’s so important to find your tribe.
Tony:
I love that tied in so well, Jim. I mean, I’m happy to hear that the community was already a big part of the framework that you have because I’ve seen it play such an important role in my life, I know in Ashley’s life, and for so many people that are getting started, that community piece, that peer group is so incredibly important. And just really quickly, I love the concept of filtering out advice from people who aren’t necessarily qualified to give you that advice. I love my mom to death, but I wouldn’t take real estate investing advice from my mom because she hasn’t done it. I love my dad. My dad’s never made a podcast. So if he gave me feedback on, “I don’t know if you should say that in the podcast,” it doesn’t apply as well. Now, if Ashley gave me feedback on a real estate deal, I’m going to take that, right?
Jim:
I would say just like when we talked about complaining, that you can’t be upset by the results you didn’t get from the work you didn’t do, when we’re talking about criticism … Because so many people shrink and being limited is the opposite of being limitless. And so many people shrink down because of other people’s expectations. And I would just remind people that if you’re fueled by the expectations of others, you’re just going to run out of gas. And you shouldn’t take advice from somebody … Or no, sorry. I wouldn’t take criticism from somebody you wouldn’t take advice from. So we can make it really, really simple.
Tony:
That is golden, man. Let me make sure I got that. You said I wouldn’t accept criticism from someone I wouldn’t accept advice from. Yeah.
Jim:
Yeah. I think that’s a nice filter.
Tony:
Yeah. That’s great.
Jim:
And you always get feedback. We could always get feedback from people because I think feedback is the breakfast of champions. So it’s nothing wrong with getting feedback from people and learning from others, but certainly it helps to learn. The fastest way to fast track your success is learn certainly from people who’ve done it. And in my case, I’ve invested millions of dollars into learning how to learn, how to optimize my brain, 30 plus years of my life doing it. And if I put it into a book and somebody could read that in a book in a few days, you could download decades into days, and you don’t have to spend the millions of dollars, the decades to be able to do that. It’s a wonderful way to shortcut that. Same thing with real estate, same thing with anything.
Tony:
That’s why I love reading books. I mean, you get to consolidate decades of experience from someone else and put that into an actionable format. I love a good book. But Jim, something you mentioned as we were talking about the peer group piece was the limiting beliefs. And especially for someone that’s at the beginning of their journey, a lot of times those limiting beliefs can lead to analysis paralysis where they’re stuck in an action because they don’t believe they can actually achieve these things. So you’ve touched on it a little bit, but what are some proven ways you’ve seen to break through some of those self-limiting beliefs?
Jim:
Mindset is the foundation for everything. Mindset is the set of assumptions and attitudes you have about something. So you could even know all the great methods, but if your mindset is … I don’t know. In order to make money after hurt people or take advantage of them or money is the root of all evil, all behavior is belief driven. So you won’t even use the methods to its potential because you have a deep-seated belief saying something to the contrary. And so it’s very important to get those things in line. And it’s nice to discover … We walk people through a process, it’s kind of extensive in the book about how to discover the lies in your life. And LIE is an acronym. Limited idea entertained. What are the limited ideas we’re entertaining that just are not true? And so going back to the power of knowing yourself, self-awareness, being a superpower, it’s nice to do a mental audit because it’s really hard to change something if you’re not aware of it.
It’s really hard to be able to change your finances if you’re not looking at your finances, if you’re not pulling up your bank statements, if you’re afraid of running a credit report or whatever. Or if you’re not going and getting on the scale or whatever the metric is for health. And so what I would say is do an audit of your current thoughts. And then there’s so many different tools and techniques that we talk about in the book. EMDR, EFT, tapping. Some of you are familiar with tapping on meridians to be able to change limiting beliefs. We talk about the power of self-hypnosis, and we’re hypnotizing ourselves all the time. I think the nature of the work is all about transcending. I mean, if you look at a word like transcend, ending the trance. And the trance is not only through marketing and media that’s saying we’re broken or we need to be fixed or those kind of things and fear that comes through the media and everything, but also it’s the self-hypnosis.
I think one of the ways to change is to be really conscious. They say the two most powerful words in the English language are the two shortest words I am. Because whatever you put after it determines your life, your identity and your destiny if you will. And so a nice I am statement. Because some people say I’m a procrastinator and that is their identity. And then they wonder why they can’t get things done. And it’s the difference between saying I am a smoker and changing the behavior. It’s really hard if people identify with being a smoker as opposed to that’s something that they do. And what you do does not necessarily define who you are also as well. But absolutely prioritize mindset, know the lies you’re telling yourself and then see if there’s a way … In the book, we do have a transformation process where we just reframe their limiting beliefs. And it’s usually a 180, the opposite of what is holding them back.
And so some of the lies that we talk about as examples in learning are things like mistakes are failures, and that’s just simply not true. People think failure is the opposite of success when failure is clearly a part of success. And sometimes when we’re talking about risky, sometimes it’s too … You know what’s risky is playing it safe nowadays. And that could be a challenge also. But these are all a mindset issue. It’s your assumptions and your attitudes about something. And especially whether it’s money or it’s real estate, but also your attitudes, assumptions about the most important thing, which is you. What you believe is possible, what you believe you’re capable of, what you believe … We can get really raw, what you believe you deserve. And some people deep down don’t believe they could be happy or deserve that loving relationship or deserve to be healthy. And then it doesn’t matter what the methods are, they’re either going to not do the methods or they’re going to do it in such a way that they’re still limited around their mindset and the belief patterns.
So a lot of the stuff that we believe is complete BS. They’re just belief systems. And for me, when I was nine years old, I was slowing down in class and I was being teased, bullied because I was just not getting the lesson that day. And teacher came to my defense and she pointed to me and said, “Leave that kid alone.” Good intentions, like family. “Leave that kid alone. That’s the boy with a broken brain.” And I was like, wow, I didn’t realize I had the broken brain. Because when you’re born, you’re a blank slate. So all these beliefs got imprinted on us. So how did it play out? Every time I did badly in school, which was like every week, or I wasn’t picked for sports, which was like every week, I would say, “Oh, because I have the broken brain.” And that became my belief. And for the longest time, for a decade and a half, it limited me because all behavior is belief driven. If you believe you can or believe you can’t, either way, you’re right. The Henry Ford quote. So definitely do an audit of your beliefs, see if you could do a 180 of it and also just see what’s working because some beliefs serve us, but we don’t have to believe everything we think.
Ashley:
Jim, how does this tie into manifestation? I recently started listening to a podcast that talks about … Some of this sounds very familiar as to whatever you want, you have to manifest it and you have to put it out into the universe that this is who you are, this is what you want, and this is how your life is going to go. Does what you write in the book correlate with any kind of manifestation or how does it differ?
Jim:
If we’re defining manifestation as taking something that’s invisible that you can’t see and making it something you can see, like you’re creating something, I’m not a big fan of law of attraction because I also believe in the law of action. And the law of attraction and manifestation, it’s kind of like you could sit in a chair and just imagine it’s going to happen and that hasn’t been my personal experience.
Ashley:
That actually reminds me of a quote that I heard once is if you’re going to build a house, you’re not going to hire a builder who’s going to dream about building your house. You’re going to hire one that’s going to plan how to build your house. So does that decipher what your difference is compared to manifestation?
Jim:
I watch a lot of mixed martial arts. I grew up watching a lot of anime, and I would think about that stuff all the time with emotion, like the law of attraction talks about. So I visualize it and I imagine it, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily have the skillset. If I’m not going into gym and getting proper coaching in jujitsu or Muay Thai or something else, I’m probably not going to get the results. Not even probably. I just won’t. No matter how much I obsessed about it with energy and imagination. So I feel like built into the word attraction is the word action, and I think that nothing happens without it. Can our beliefs affect the universe? Sure. And I feel like we have to do our part also.
Tony:
Yeah, I’ve always felt like the law of attraction is just when you focus so heavily on something, you just start to identify more opportunities that you might’ve overlooked before. But yeah, you-
Jim:
That you have to act on.
Tony:
Exactly right.
Ashley:
Like a car.
Tony:
Exactly right, yeah. Like the recency effect type thing. But yeah, I can’t imagine someone sitting at their dining room table manifesting their way to losing weight when they’re still shoving cake and pizza down their face every day. It doesn’t work that way.
Jim, I want to talk a little bit about the financial piece because for a lot of our audience, they’re W-2 employees, they’re working day jobs, but a lot of folks I think aren’t necessarily maybe operating in their areas of strength when it comes to what they’re doing to earn money. What’s your advice for folks to get more in alignment so that as they are earning money through their W-2 jobs, it’s more aligned with what they’re actually good at?
Jim:
Yeah. I’ll go back into this idea that we do what we have to do. My family, when they immigrated to the states, my dad was 13, lost both his parents. They couldn’t afford to feed him. Came here to live with his aunt. We lived in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at. They had many jobs. That aunt who I knew as my grandmother growing up passed of Alzheimer’s while she was caregiving for me. So everybody has a different story and everybody has a different story. So it’s not a comparison thing. But I also believe it’s not about resources, it’s about our internal resourcefulness. We didn’t have any money, education, didn’t know anybody, no network or Rolodex, but I just feel like that adversity could be an advantage and the challenges lead to change. I don’t know one strong person that had an easy life.
So if you have a hard life and you’re working and you have a family, we just have to … It’s not even about time management, but time is the one thing we all have the same of. Not everybody has the same things I talked about. Income, education, connections. But we all have 24 hours in a day. But I don’t think it’s about time management. I think it’s about priority management. And for priority management is different because priority management is saying that the most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing. The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing. And so we do what we can. And again, we feed our business after hours until it feeds us back. And if your values are freedom, that’s one of the things that you hold dear, that’s your treasure, then you could have structure in your job and also do something.
And I also feel like entrepreneurship, having been an entrepreneur my whole life and never having a W-2 before, people think it’s easy, but I also think it’s a different kind of effort. When you’re not being told exactly what to do and you’re not reporting to a boss, your raise becomes effective when you become effective. Because it’s all on us. And it’s a different mindset in terms of personal responsibility because you don’t have that safety net. And I’m not saying quit your job and just go full-time into anything. You could have a family and you could have bills, and you have to do it intelligently. But I’m just saying that you have to get out of your own way. Meaning some people are doing the opposite of priority management and they’re doing things that aren’t getting them the results, but they fool themselves because they’re busy and they complain to their family that they’re tired.
And for me, it always comes down to purpose. My purpose was very clear growing up because I value my family, my friends, and I’m asking myself, who’s counting on me to show up today? Who’s counting on me to do the hard things today? Who’s counting on me to be at my A game today? And that fuels my desire and my mission to do the things that I do. People are surprised to hear that public speaking was my worst fear. I mean, worst fear. Because if you grew up with brain damage and you can’t read, you never know the answers, you never want to be called on in class. So my superpower was shrinking down and being invisible, sitting behind the tall kid. I went all through school without giving a book report because I was terrified of doing that. Now, life has a sense of humor because what do I do?
All I do every day is the two things that were the hardest things for me, which is public speak on this thing called learning. But I think adversity could be an advantage. But going towards your question, I would say to the person who’s working their nine to five, their W-2, you have to make a choice. There’s a quote in Limitless again that says, life is the letter C between B and D. B is birth, D is death. Life is C, choice. That these difficult times that you’re going through, it could distract you, these difficult times can diminish you or these difficult times, they could develop you. We decide with the choices that we make every single day. And so I would say one of the most powerful productivity tools, performance tools you have is your calendar. And yet most people don’t use it. They put in like, oh, this is my parent teacher meetings. This is my doctor’s appointment. This is my nine to five.
But they’re not scheduling that side hustle. They’re not scheduling their workouts. They’re not scheduling their meditation, whatever it is, their sleep time, the things that are important. And you can know what someone’s priorities are by looking at their calendar. Because what we put our time to, it’s not what we say, it’s what we show. And even in business, it’s not what you promise, it’s what you prove. And when you act consistently, then the results do the speaking for you. And so I think it’s better well done than it is well said. But for me, I’ll be thinking about your reasons. Once you unlimit your mindset about believing it’s possible that you deserve it, your motivation, the purpose part is really just who’s relying on you. And then the other thing is, we have one life. Why aren’t we running towards our dreams like we’re on fire? That kind of urgency. And granted you do difficult things, but if it was easy, everybody would have everything, right? If it was easy, everyone would have it. But when you could get yourself to do the things that other people won’t do, then you can live a life that other people can’t live. But you have to pay the price.
Ashley:
So Jim, before we wrap up here, what is the promise or what sort of transformation will occur of this book? What do you want someone to get out of this book after they have read it?
Jim:
The bottom line for my work is your brain is your number one wealth building asset. It just is. We live in an age where no one watching this … It’s not like hundreds of years ago. If we’re agricultural age, industrial age, we’re paid for our brute strength. Today, it’s our brain strength. It’s not your muscle power today. It’s your mind power. And the faster you can learn, the faster you could earn. Because knowledge today is not only power, knowledge is profit. And so the idea behind this book is your brain is the wealth creating machine. It has created everything else around us that we see, every technology, but this is the ultimate technology. But people upgrade their phones, their cars, their apps more than they upgrade this technology, which is everything. Your brain. And so what I would say is Limitless, the promise of the book is we’re providing you with an owner’s manual for your brain.
But it’s not like an anatomy book. It’s a very practical way to be able to change your mindset, your motivation and the methods you do to learn. The ultimate skill to master in the 21st century is your ability to learn rapidly and translate that learning into action. That’s the ultimate competitive advantage bar none. Because when you could learn how to learn, when you could focus, you could concentrate, you could read three times faster, you could understand everything that you read, you can remember everything that you need to remember and you can implement and think and solve problems, what can you apply that to? Everything. Real estate, money, marketing, martial arts, music, mandarin, everything in your life, medicine. Whatever you’re studying. Everything gets easier in your life. So the book focuses on two things. It focuses on how to optimize your hardware, the brain optimization, and also how to optimize the software, which are the processes on how to focus, how to read better, how to improve your memory, how to remember client information, product information, give speeches without notes.
I mean all the things. Because I believe two of the most costly words in business and in life are I forgot. Just think about how we lose effectiveness when we say, I forgot that conversation. I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot that presentation. I forgot to go to that meeting. I forgot that person’s name. And on the other side, memory makes money. When you can easily remember names and faces and client information, product information, give sales presentations, remember listings, remember things you have to do, you just show up with confidence in your life and capabilities. And so the promise of the book is to really make you more limitless in the area that really matters, to invest in the most important wealth building device that you have, which is your brain. So we talk about how to focus, how to get better sleep, how to change your habits, how to get rid of old lingering habits, how to change your limiting beliefs that hold you back in terms of self-doubt and self-sabotage.
And then all the accelerating learning methods that are there. And the new book, the expanded version that’s just coming out is all about how to build momentum. So we talk about these brain types. And people could take the quiz at mybrainanimal.com. It just takes four minutes, nothing to buy again. It’s kind of like, which Game of Thrones character are you? And I’ll give you a prescriptive on how to apply this towards your business. Your brain type. How to negotiate, how to communicate with people that have different brain types than you. We talk about learning agility at work. We talk about nootropics that will enhance your mood, your mental energy, help you with your focus and your memory. We talk about how to use AI in your business and in your day to day to perform better, to learn faster.
So it’s just like the culmination of 30 years of research and teaching and coaching myself into the one place. And this is the one book that will help you learn every other book afterwards. Because you’ll read all the other book’s faster, remember all the other books faster, focus better. And people could find it at limitlessbook.com. And when they do it at this time, we gift them hundreds of dollars of speed reading and memory training as my gift just to celebrate the launch of the book. And we donate all the profits to charity for the book to build schools for children, Alzheimer’s research in memory of my grandmother, and so much more.
Ashley:
How awesome, Jim. Thank you so much. We really appreciated having you on the show today and sharing your book and all of that information with us. Some of the things that I loved were that this is very relatable, not just for rookie real estate investors, but also for experienced real estate investors and anyone in business in general too that may be listening to the podcast. So Jim, where would you like people to find out more information about you and the book?
Jim:
We have a podcast too. You could just search my name in your podcast app. You just have to spell it right. It’s Jim Kwik. K-W-I-K. It’s my real name. I didn’t change it to do this.
Tony:
I was literally thinking that earlier, Jim, if that was …
Jim:
It’s my father’s name, my grandfather’s name. And YouTube, we have over 1.3 million subscribers there. We put out dailies there. Limitless Books is probably the best way if you want to be able to support that book. This book will be the most important book. That’s my promise to everybody because it’ll help you with all other books. So many people buy books and they sit on your shelf and become shelf help, not self-help because nobody’s reading that book. And then take the quiz, mybrainanimal.com, and post the Animal. I would challenge everyone to post their animal online and tag us in it so we see it. And I’ll repost a couple and gift out a couple of books randomly to the community just as a thank you for having me on your show. But yeah, social media’s just Jim Kwik everywhere. K-W-I-K.
Ashley:
Well, Jim, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. I’m Ashley, @WealthFromRentals, and he’s Tony, @TonyJRobinson on Instagram, and we will be back with another guest. We’ll see you guys then.
(singing)
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