“Lies” You’re Told That STOP You from Becoming Successful

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show 844. What’s going on, everyone? This is David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, here today with my co-host, Rob Abasolo, and if you didn’t know, this is the biggest, the best, the baddest real estate podcast on the planet, every week bringing you the information, the how-tos and the stories that you need to be successful in this current market.
Now, today’s guest, Jim Kwik, is a world renowned expert known as a brain coach. He helps people to be smarter which is a pretty cool thing to help people be good at. As you all know that are listening to this, today’s real estate market is the most challenging that I’ve ever seen, probably the most challenging that many of you have seen, but during times like this, you can still improve yourself to hopefully find deals that you might not have saw before, make deals that you might not have made, or be ready when the market does turn around.
Jim has worked with organizations like Google, Nike, and SpaceX. He’s a New York Times bestselling author, and he joined Brandon and I back on episode 443 where he shared 10 ways to learn anything faster. For those that are loyal BiggerPockets podcast listeners, this is the same guest who Brandon and I share our most embarrassing moment in podcast history when Brandon bragged to Jim about how good our systems were, that we didn’t need a good memory, and then forgot to hit the record button, and we talked to Jim for about 35 minutes and then had the uncomfortable, awkward moment of having to tell him that after bragging Brandon had forgot to hit the button. To be honest, we silently contemplated if we should just not tell him that we weren’t recording because to go in front of one of the smartest people on the planet and tell him, “Hey, we forgot to hit the record button,” was embarrassing, but we did.

Rob:
David, you actually have a track record of doing this because I do remember when we were in Mexico for our little mastermind, we did an entire episode, I remember being like, “Dude, that might’ve been the best duo that we’ve ever done, just me and you, solo show.” And then you went to go hit stop recording and you’re like, “Wait, why is it a circle and not a square?” And then you’re like, “Oh no,” and I just saw your face turned ghost white. Oh yeah. You’re like, “I’m so sorry.” I was like, “It’s fine. Let’s do it again.”

David:
That was a fire… That’s one of the worst feelings ever. So, Jim, thank you for joining us today to allow us to redeem ourselves. We have confirmed that we are indeed recording.

Rob:
Thank you, Jim. Oh, actually I don’t think we are. Can we run that from the beginning just one more… No, I’m just kidding. All right, hit it.

David:
We did contemplate Jim playing a practical joke and getting halfway through and then pretending we had, but then you’re doing this off zero sleep, you’ve been awake for like 36 hours in a row, so I didn’t think this would be the best time to pull that off.

Rob:
You’re a good sport, man. We appreciate you.

Jim:
Hey, appreciate you both.

David:
We’re going to be talking about how to hack our brains to succeed in any situation, but before we get into that, let’s learn a little bit about your backstory. Why is brain science so personal for you?

Jim:
So I didn’t know I was going to do this growing up. A brain coach, I don’t even know if that role existed. My inspiration was my desperation. I had a series of head injuries when I was a child, and one particular TBI really messed me up. I took a bad fall when I was five years old, head first into a radiator and rushed to the emergency room. It just sucked. I mean, it ends up turning out pretty well for me, but because of it I had learning issues, I had learning disabilities, processing issues. Teachers would repeat themselves over and over again and I would learn to pretend to understand, you know what I mean, but I didn’t understand anything. Poor focus, poor memory, it took me three years longer to learn how to read, and that was really embarrassing. So I had a lot of self-doubt, a lot of fear, a lot of embarrassment, probably a little shame thrown in.
When I was nine years old, I was slowing down a class and being teased more than usual that day, and I remember on that particular day a teacher came to my defense and she pointed to me in front of the whole class and said, “Leave that kid alone. That’s the boy with the broken brain.” That label kind of became my limit, and every single time I did badly in school, which was like every week, I would say, “Oh, because I have the broken brain.” Every time I was picked for sports, I would say, “I’m broken.” And so, yeah, I struggled. But it’s interesting over time, I don’t know if anyone can relate to this, that sometimes your struggles could become your strengths, that with challenge comes change. So anyone facing adversity right now in any area of your life, just want to remind you that adversity can, in some cases, be an advantage. I don’t know one strong person that had an easy life, and every single day we have a chance because we have a choice.

Rob:
We recently had a guest on, Andy Gil, I got to meet him at BPCon, really nice guy. He has ADHD, and that whole episode was him talking about how that made life a little bit difficult sometimes, but he sort of pivoted it and really kind of leaned into the ADHD sort of being his superpower type of thing. It sounds like it’s like a similar approach where you have this adversity but how can you put the spin on that to actually make it your strength.

Jim:
Yes, this whole idea where is life happening to you or maybe is it happening for you. I’m sure some people have been through… You hear a lot about post-traumatic stress. We don’t hear a lot about post-traumatic growth where part of those people have been through trauma, they come through it, and I don’t know if someone listening could relate to it, but where you wouldn’t wish it upon anybody, the situation that happened to you, but through it you found something, you found a trait or maybe a strength, you got some clarity, maybe found a mission or purpose, something good came out of it. I think some things we can only learn in a storm, and some storms come because they help clear a path. Yeah, so the world is… Whether it’s economic or political, whatever’s going on, just want to remind people, we have agency. We always can make a new choice, and one step in another direction can completely change your destination in life.

David:
And in your efforts to overcome some of those initial challenges, which were incredibly painful, no doubt, you did research that led to some incredible insights that now all of our listeners get to benefit from. So thank you for being here. We’re going to get into some of Jim’s lies of learning, but first let’s get a quick word from today’s show sponsors.
All right, we are here with brain coach Jim Kwik who just shared a story of some of the pain that he went through when he was a child, and I know when you’re going through pain as a child, I also had a very painful childhood, it’s different than pain as an adult. You’ve got some mechanisms of which you can process pain once you’ve been alive a little bit longer, but once you’re in those formative years, you just feel all of it and it could just be overwhelming. I love the line you said that you don’t know any successful people that didn’t have a painful childhood, and that’s a lot of hope to the people that do struggle with some of those things. We have a Jim like you, Mr. Jim Kwik, so I love it. So my favorite people to listen to are the people that have been through the most pain. So tell me, what are the lies of learning?

Jim:
So we go through some of them in the book. So the book initially is Limitless Expanded, it was a book on all methodology on accelerated learning and brain optimization. That’s kind of my superpower, teaching people how to have the best brains possible and also learn faster. I think the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn in any industry, right? I believe two of the most costly words sometimes in life or work are I forgot. I forgot to do it, I forgot to bring it, I forgot the meeting, I forgot that conversation, I forgot what I was going to say, I forgot that person’s name, I forgot to hit the record button, all those things, we could lose time and credibility.
But also on the other side, memory can make you money when you can easily remember facts and figures or client information, product information, give presentations without the use of notes. We live in an expert economy where knowledge is not only power, knowledge is profit, and the faster you could learn, the faster you could earn. So the book, when I first was going to send it to my publisher was on methodology on how to read faster and remember and do all those things, but then I was like, before I hit send, I was like, “Will a hundred percent of the people who read this book get the rewards that they’re hoping for?” And the honest answer was no because we had to address, besides methodology, two other areas which are your mindset and your motivation.
So if you feel stuck, Limitless is not about being perfect, it’s about advancing and progressing, but if you feel like you’re in a box, that box by definition you can’t break out of, right? Maybe it’s your income, maybe it’s your impact, maybe it’s your health, maybe it’s some area of your career, you feel like you’re stuck. And so the three dimensions that make a box, these are the three forces that will get you out of that box, that will liberate you. So it’s your mindset, your motivation, and the methods.
So the lies fall underneath methodology. I mean, not just methodology, but your mindset, your set of assumptions and attitudes you have about something. So let’s say somebody learns something on your podcast, make more money to close more deals to be able to increase their income but they’re not doing it, part of the reason might be their mindset. At some level, they might not believe it’s possible. They might not believe they’re capable of it. Maybe it’s possible for somebody else who’s listening but not capable for them. Maybe they don’t believe at some level they deserve it, right? And so that falls underneath mindset.
When it comes to learning, there are certain lies that we should probably address to unravel because they could hold us back. At events, I’ll do these demonstrations where I’ll have like 50 people or a hundred people, depending on how much time we have, just pass around a microphone and introduce themselves and I’ll remember all their names. I think that’s such an important skill in business because how’re you going to show somebody you’re going to care for their future, their finances, their property, whatever, if you don’t care enough just to remember them. So it’s probably the number one business etiquette skill.
But if you have a limiting belief… At events, people pull me aside, like, “I know you’re a memory coach. I’m so glad you’re here. I have a horrible memory.” They’ll say that to me and I’ll 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 a program it will run. So if you tell yourself, “I’m not good at remembering people’s names,” you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. And so when we’re thinking about our thoughts and these lies, one of them I call a LIE, it’s an acronym for me, it’s a limited idea entertain, L-I-E, limited idea entertain. It might not be true that you’re too old or that you’re not smart enough because all behavior is belief driven.

Rob:
You’ve identified seven lies of learning, and I know on today’s show we’re going to cover three of those that we think will be valuable for the listeners. So we’ll name the lie and then you can tell us what it gets wrong and what the true version of it is. Is that cool?

Jim:
Yeah, that’s perfect. Let’s do it.

Rob:
Okay, awesome. So lie number one, mistakes are failures.

Jim:
Yeah, I don’t think that’s the case. I think failure, there’s no such thing as failure. There’s just failure to learn. I believe that feedback is the breakfast of superheroes, if you will, right? You can make a mistake, but those mistakes don’t have to make us. The reality, the truth is that failure is not the opposite of success, and I’m sure you guys have examples of this. Failure is not the opposite of success. Failure is part of success, right? You fail forward. We make mistakes because it gives us feedback on how to do something better if we choose to learn something from it and we’re not limited by that. And so I would say failure and mistakes is not a bad thing. You want to be able to make it, maybe make it quick, but learning from it is I think is most important so you don’t repeat it. If you make a mistake once, sure, it’s a mistake, but if you make it twice then it’s kind of a choice if we didn’t learn from it the first time.

David:
I had a basketball coach and they had that exact same philosophy. He said, “Listen, if you do something wrong, either you didn’t know or you didn’t care. If I’ve never told you that, that’s on me. You didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do it. But if it’s been explained and you did it again, you didn’t care enough to make the adjustment.” I feel like that ties in with what you’re saying.

Jim:
Yeah, and built in that is a reminder that we have agency. We have a certain level of sovereignty. I want to remind people that they’re the pilot of their mind. They’re the pilot of their life. They don’t have to be just the passenger where things are just happening to you, where you just have to react to like, “Oh, this is just the economic client. This is the climate, or this is just the market,” because if anyone could succeed, that means it’s possible, right? If you’re willing to adopt that mindset, you’re motivated and use the correct methods consistently, then you’re going to get similar results, without a doubt.

David:
That’s really good. We know that mistakes don’t have to be considered failures, but we often are so afraid of the pain that will come from a mistake that we will treat them like failures and run away from it. I know that’s not necessarily your area of expertise, but do you have anything you can share on the power that we give failures when we interpret them or we assign meaning to them that can be painful?

Jim:
Yeah, even changing things like there is no failure, there’s just feedback, it just changes the conversation. We do an annual brain performance conference, and I remember one year we had Quincy Jones in the audience, this music producer legend, and I couldn’t help but pull him on stage, without planned, just spontaneously. I had this conversation with him and I asked him, everyone knows everyone else’s successes, and for him it was Thriller and it was like We Are the world and all these things, and I was like, “I don’t want to hear about your successes and achievements. I want to hear about your mistakes, your problems. I want to know what problems that you face in the past or currently.” And he looked at me and he said, “Jim, I don’t have any problems.” And I was like, “Wait, wait. All human beings have some kind of challenge or problem.” He was like, “No, I don’t have problems.” He said, “I have puzzles.” And I was like, “Wow.”
That just changed it, even when I said it out loud, and it just reminded myself because a puzzle just feels different than a problem. For me, a puzzle is something that I did as a kid, it’s fun, there’s always a solution. Children learn extremely well, right? We had our first child this year, he’s 10 months old and he’s crawling and now he’s trying to stand. He’s just attempting to stand and he falls all the time, but he doesn’t fall and just say, “Okay, I’m not going to try to stand anymore.” That would be ludicrous. Children, they’re willing to make those mistakes and that’s how they learn, and they get up every single time and they get stronger because of it. I feel like as adults though, sometimes we’re so concerned about falling and making those mistakes, especially public, because what are people going to think of us, what are their expectations, what are their opinions, and we have this internal fear. You could either look at a child or you could fast-forward to more towards the end stages of our life.
I spent a lot of time in senior centers helping them polish off their memories, and while I’m doing it I hear some amazing stories and I feel like I could learn a lot, so much wisdom, but I also hear a lot of regret, right? It’s one of those things where maybe this person, they pursued a career because their parents expected it of them or they didn’t pursue a relationship because what other people would think about that relationship or whatever, right? Just as a reminder for everybody, if you do this thought experiment, it’s not really positive, but when we’re taking our final breaths, none of other people’s opinions are really going to matter, right? None of our fears are even going to matter. None of other people’s expectations are going to matter. What’s going to matter is how we laughed and how we loved and how we learned and how we lived.
So I think beginning with the end in mind is just so very important to inform what we do today, and I think it’s not even about time management, it’s about priority management. The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing, and hold that and tie that to your values. And then I think it gives us a little courage to take those small little steps because I think life is difficult when we’re scared of making mistakes. Life is difficult because we’re either leaving our comfort zone or life is difficult because we’re staying inside of our comfort zone. And so, yeah, maybe it could be a wake-up call for all of us as we’re listening to this and just where are we pulling back because of what it’s going to look like to other people and then just remember more the truth.

David:
Rob, what about you? Any experiences with mistakes being failures and you looking at them that way?

Rob:
Yeah, I always say that every mistake makes me a million and a future million, and I’m very for the idea of mistakes and failures because they shape who you are. They make you the prudent investor that you will become. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, David, but I ask this pretty often on the podcast when someone says that they messed up big time, when they tell us that big failure that they had in their real estate career, I’m always like, “Let’s be honest for a second. Would you take that back?” And honestly, I’m always surprised at the answers because a lot of people say, “Yeah, I kind of wish I didn’t do that,” and I’m like, “But you’re here today. You’re here today literally because of that mistake.”
There were a lot of times in my real estate career, the first house I ever sold was my first primary property, and I remember thinking I was going to make $40,000 selling that, and I felt so dumb because I listened to BiggerPockets, I wanted to get into real estate, and I felt dumb selling this property when BiggerPockets was like, “Yeah, real estate,” and I was like, “But I need the $40,000 because we’re going to move to LA and we’ll need it to survive.” It was that $40,000 that I took, a mistake on the surface, that I then went and purchased my first property in Los Angeles that’s doubled in appreciation that led to me building a tiny house that led to me building more that led to where I am today. So I think always in the short term mistakes are very painful, but in the long term you always look a little bit not like a genius, but you look very smart for having made what were terrible decisions at the time.

David:
Well, no one sees that the knowledge and the experience came from the bad decisions, right? When you’re listening to social media, you’re seeing the muscle, you’re not seeing the workouts a lot of the time.

Rob:
Yeah.

David:
So that moves us on to lie number two. Speaking about powerful bodies, lie number two is that knowledge is power. What do you have to say about that, Jim?

Jim:
I’m going kind of go in coaching mode right now, and I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the truth is none of the podcasts or books or courses, none of it works unless we work it, right? So I think knowledge at best has the potential to be power, but obviously when we apply it or we implement that knowledge then it becomes real power, and getting in this kind of mind shift where you start, you listen to something and you just ask yourself, “How can I use this?” because otherwise it just stays. It becomes mental masturbation, just stays an idea. We don’t need any more ideas. We need more implementation. And so all the books, people buy books, they sit on their shelf and it becomes shelf-help and not self-help because people aren’t reading it or if they’re reading it-

Rob:
I like it.

Jim:
If they’re not reading it, maybe they’re reading it but they’re not using it, and as somebody who reads a book and doesn’t use it, they don’t have any more results than anybody who’s illiterate, who couldn’t read the book in the first place. I think it’s an important lie to unravel, a limited idea that we entertain is that knowledge is not power. It has the potential to be power when knowledge times action is a lot of power. And so I want to encourage everybody for every hour maybe you spend learning something on a podcast or a conversation or a book or wherever you’re getting your training from that you spend an equal hour putting it into play.

Rob:
Jim, is there a moment in your life where this really rang true? Is there a moment that this principle or this lie was solidified, whether it be in your journey or maybe a client that you’ve worked with?

Jim:
Yeah, I mean, even when I was first getting started, I was 18 years old and I was accumulating a lot of knowledge and I could profess about it like professors do and teach about it, but it never became really real until I could show people results. I think in today’s economy it’s so important. You mentioned social media, instead of saying something, I think it’s more important we show it. Instead of promising, it’s more effective if we just prove it.
And so I’ve made that mistake also where I’ll just have the idea, but nothing changes in my… Let’s say I read a book on health or something or sleep because that’s been an issue for me when I was younger where for a long time I was only sleeping a couple hours a night because I had this undiagnosed severe obstructive sleep apnea, and I was only sleeping two hours a night for five straight years, which is insane. I was hospitalized a number of times, rushed to the emergency room just for lack of sleep, and it wasn’t because my mind was ruminating, I have a very practiced mind, I just couldn’t stay asleep because I couldn’t breathe and get oxygen. I would use dental devices or CPAP devices, breathing machines, and still didn’t work. I would read a lot about it and kind of learn the mechanics, but until I started putting some of these mechanics into play… You could read a book on pushups, but you’re not going to get any kind of benefit unless you actually do the pushups.

Rob:
That’s sort of how I’ve felt really recently when I was trying to get back more into a health routine. I was watching all the videos and reading all the things and kind of slowly getting into it, and I was like, “Well, there’s not really any results,” until I actually went all in. It’s the same thing with real estate where I kind of felt like my acquisitions were going down and I was like, “Well, how many offers have I actually made?” And the answer was 25 to 50% of what I usually do. And I was like, “Mm, all right. So the answer is to just actually do more of the things that I say I’m going to do and actually having some accountability as well.”
I think that’s always the hard part when it comes to applying knowledge is a lot of the times it’s a very lonely journey to do the thing that you set out to do, but when you can bring someone else to sort of toe that line with you and keep you accountable, I feel like that’s when I really started seeing a lot of actual progress in any of my journeys, specifically in the real estate side of things where I’d complain to my partner’s, he’s like, “Well, how many times have you done this?” I’m like, “Well, not a lot when you make me say it out loud.” And so it really does come down to actually taking action, otherwise what’s the point of storing it all in your head.

Jim:
Yeah. No, I just think if you consistently act, then your results will speak for itself and it would do the talking for us. It’s definitely better well done than well said.

David:
This lie in the world of real estate investing is probably the most prominent of all of them because in our space people can trick themselves into thinking they’re taking action by listening to podcasts, by paying for courses, by reading books. You get all this knowledge in your head, like I know more about doing a pushup than anyone that’s ever lived, and then someone says, “How many pushups are you doing?” And you’re like, “I don’t have time to do pushups. I’m reading about pushup theory all the time.” You get people that don’t read a book ever and they just do pushups a lot, and even if they’re not doing it as well as a person that reads about it, they’re going to be in much better shape.
I’m glad you’re calling this out because knowledge is power is something you hear everybody say all the time, and it’s said in the way of if people knew better, they would do better. No, not all the time. I think most people know sugar and carbs are bad, okay, and it’s really hard to not eat sugar and carbs. People know exercise and fitness is important, but we don’t all do it. People know when it comes to investing, you’re going to have to get out there and make some mistakes and learn, but we don’t want to do it, and that kind of opens the door for lie number three.
Now, we briefly discussed this earlier, and that is that genius is born as opposed to like you were saying when we first started the conversation, it’s something that can be learned and there’s an actual system to what people are doing. I will admit that some people are born with a proclivity to picking it up faster, but there’s still something that they’re doing that can be copied. Do you have any examples of people that maybe you’ve coached or people that you’ve seen in this space that have thought that they couldn’t do something, realize there was a methodology to success and have turned it around?

Jim:
Yeah, I mean, I had a recent example. We have a learning center here in Westchester, New York, and one of our clients was really nervous because they are very introverted, and not just introverted but they’re almost painfully shy, and they are in this space, in real estate. They know that if they had a better memory that they could be more effective, people would have more confidence in them, they would feel more heard because how are you going to be able to show you care if you don’t care enough just to remember the things that are important to them. One of the things was he was going to this networking function, a conference, was like a mastermind, and he was really nervous because he also is… he says that he’s really bad at remembering people’s names.
It was interesting because we went through some training, gave him a couple of tips, and one of the things is, and I’m sure everybody here would like to be better at remembering names because I think it’s number one business etiquette, networking skill, but even something simple like let’s say somebody listening right now, I’m talking to you, you have trouble remembering people’s names. But let’s say David and Rob have a suitcase, let’s say of a million dollars cash for you, tax-free, if you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet. Who’s going to remember that person’s name to take home that million? Everybody. So as a coach, I have to call people on their BS, their belief systems. It had nothing to do with your capability or your potential. It had everything to do with whether you’re motivated or not, and I think something simple…
So we went through these exercises, some visualization exercises, simple things like turn the person’s name into a picture right after you have a reason to remember their name. David, for me, I use a slingshot, and so imagine meeting David here and you take a slingshot, a slingshot, by the way, for David and Goliath, so that helps kind of sink it in.

David:
Okay, okay. Yeah, got it.

Jim:
And then I would just pop right there on his great shirt, and I would remember that. If you’re watching this on video, you’ll see the shirt that he’s wearing or some of his facial hair, and later on you say goodbye to that person and you just remember, hey, this person has that shirt or that facial hair. And then what did I do? I said, “Slingshot.” What’s his name? David. For Rob, I could rob Rob. I could imagine doing that.

David:
Rob does have a face that looks like it’s begging to be robbed. That’s a good one, Jim.

Jim:
Right. And one of the things, if it makes you laugh that’s why we remember. So many times we forget something because we just hear it, right? But if you could see it and then you feel something because of it, you’re more likely to remember it. There’s a proverb that says what I hear I forget, what I see I remember, what I do I understand. What I hear I forget. I heard the name, I forgot the name. What I see, I remember I saw your face, I’ll always remember your face. What I do, going back to putting things into practice, action. Knowledge is not power, it’s potential power. It becomes power when we implement and apply, then we really understand.
I feel like people don’t understand something unless they could do it, right? If someone’s a real estate expert because they read a lot of books and listen to a lot of podcasts but they don’t have that portfolio, they don’t have that kind of results, then are they really an expert if they’re not doing it? They say if people can’t do it, they teach it, but ironically, when they teach it, they get to know it a little bit better also.
But coming back to this, when we’re thinking about the mistakes that we make or genius is born, I really think genius is built. If someone is extraordinary, certainly they could have certain talents and certain charisma, but usually it’s forged through deep work, through sacrifice, right? All the stuff you don’t see on Instagram, all those workouts, those late nights where you had to feed your business until your business feeds you back. I think we make these choices. There’s a quote in my book, Limitless Expanded, where it says life is a letter C between B and D. Life is C between B and D, and B stands for birth, D stands for death, life, C, in the middle, choice. Our lives are the sum total of all the choices we made up to this point, and I truly believe that these difficult times they could distract you, these difficult times they could diminish you, or these difficult times they could develop you. We ultimately decide, and every day we have a chance because every day we can make a new choice.

Rob:
So help me understand here, with the idea of knowledge is power, the idea is you don’t actually know it until you actually go out and apply it.

Jim:
Yeah.

Rob:
But then to reach that next level of genius it’s not only applying it, but it’s applying it with consistency and tenacity to the point where you actually are really a genius at that thing. Is that sort of the difference between the two?

Jim:
Yeah, I think consistency compounds, but I also think if we’re persistent we could achieve it, but if we’re consistent we get to keep it. So many people could be persistent and go to the gym and get that body but-

David:
That’s good.

Jim:
… they’re not going to keep it unless… There’s a difference between something being attainable and sustainable in business, in our body, and same with our brain. So I think consistency trumps everything and consistency compounds, right? You started at this point, you had your $40,000, and little by little a little became a lot. So many people could just give up and let that mistake make them and then they fall. Again, I don’t know a strong person that had an easy past, and I think these mistakes, when you get up you build that strength every single time. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s pretty straightforward, right?

Rob:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more because I was telling… David always makes fun of me for it, but I’m still relatively involved in my business more than I should be. I’m a big believer that you should always be a student of your craft. I get all of the messages from Airbnb to my phone. I have a property manager that actually manages those, but I like to get them because I like to sort of still be in the weeds. But the other day on a podcast, I got a phone call and I got it and I checked the voicemail, and Dave was like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “It could be an Airbnb guest.” He’s like, “You don’t need to do that.” I’m like, “I know.”
I think it’s very easy to pull yourself out of the business so much to where you get a little rusty, and to stay sharp, I think consistency is how you stay sharp in really any vertical that you do but specifically real estate. I feel like I’m always making my life a little harder than it should be, mostly because I’d just like to know do I still got it or have I kept it.

Jim:
Yeah. We make decisions all the time, and the question is, are we [inaudible 00:32:03] with those mistakes and the power of feedback or is the feedback are we getting closer to our goals, are we stalling or actually going the opposite direction. I think it’s important. A lot of people feel burnt out nowadays. Sometimes they feel burnt out because they’re doing too much, and I would suggest sometimes we’re burnt out not because we’re doing too much, sometimes we’re burnt out because we’re doing too little of the things that really matter, including not only the things that give us biggest return of our time and our talent and our treasure, but also simple things like self-care. A lot of people are burned out because they’re just not taking care of themselves.
I think our brains, for everyone that’s listening in whatever industry you’re at, everybody here, it’s not like it was hundreds of years ago. You’re not compensated for your brute strength. Today it’s your brain strength. It’s not your muscle power today. It’s your mind power. I think knowledge, the right knowledge applied is not only power, the right knowledge applied is profit, and the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn.

David:
Earlier you mentioned the three components of a limitless mindset, and I’m going to ask you in a second, we’re going to recap those, but before we do, I wanted to get your take on a issue I’m having in my life. Within the different companies I have and in the industry I operate in, I’ve got real estate sales teams, mortgage companies, I own investment properties. I have noticed a trend of human beings that are good communicators, they’re very articulate, reading something somebody smart figured out, regurgitating the information to the masses, they appear very intelligent because they’re talking about something that other people, it just goes over their head, they don’t understand. They get credit for being smart, but when the ship that they’re captaining actually ends up in choppy seas, they have no idea what to do.
It’s become a bit of a pet peeve that it’s very easy to portray yourself as knowledgeable because you’ve taken in all the information and you know how to repeat what someone else said, and it’s different than when you have what I call experiential knowledge. I refer to it as kinetic knowledge if it’s like a martial art or something, but I don’t know, Jim, it’s very different in my mind, the person that actually understands the concept and the fundamentals and knows how to navigate through them versus I heard someone else say this and I’m repeating it and I sound smart. Do you have any advice on how to pay attention to where you’re getting information from, or maybe if some of the people listening to this have tricked themselves into thinking that they have more knowledge than they really do because they’ve heard other people say the smart things?

Jim:
Yeah, I mean I subscribe to you could trust but you could also verify, and it’s one of those things where I believe the life we live are the lessons that we teach. When somebody is congruent in terms of not only their mindset but they’re consistently motivated, they’re using real methods that produce real results that you can’t fake it. It’s tough in social media world where everyone’s comparing themselves to everybody else. The grass is greener, frankly, where you water it, and it’s greener sometimes in social media land. You follow these real estate influencers, whatever, sometimes it’s greener because of there’s a lot of artificial turf out there. There are a lot of people that really understand optics. There’s an internal reality and then there’s an external perception with everything, and I feel like, yeah, you have to sift through the noise and see who’s real and do your own research and trust in the people that… I mean, I always look for competence and character, for me. It’s a level of the people I do business with.
We have different visions of our company and we have a global organization, students and clients in every country in the world so we have a lot of data, but I want people who are world-class at what they do because I feel like we are world-class at what we do, but then also somebody could be competent and not have character and I don’t really want to do business with that person. Or somebody could have a lot of character and not be competent and capable, and that doesn’t really help either as well. But yeah, absolutely. There are definitely some false, and I don’t think it’s a lot of people, but there’s certainly some people that prop things and they use optics and association to kind of make people have these cognitive biases and to make them trustworthy as opposed to… I still think your actions and your results speak louder than anything you could post or say.

David:
I love your analogy of artificial turf. That’s going down on the Mount Rushmore of-

Rob:
That’s good. Yeah, yeah, it’s a good one.

Jim:
Or it’s greener on the other side, it’s greener on the other side not only because there’s artificial turf, maybe it’s the filter they’re using and it can look greener.

David:
So to that effect, Rob, you are doing it the right way by keeping your finger on the pulse. I’m actually, I’m changing my tune a little bit. I do think that it’s wiser that you know what’s going on. I just get irritated when you’re the guy that has to take the call to put the spa on the deck when we’re in the middle of recording the podcast. But other than that, I think you do a very good job of actually watering that grass.

Rob:
That one was they were craning it on and I couldn’t not answer it. It’s expensive, it’s like $400 a day for a crane, and it worked out. It’s a great spa.

David:
Jim, you’re a master of frameworks. Earlier you mentioned the three components of a limitless mindset, our mindset, motivation, and methods with the benefit or the bonus of momentum. How do these components sort of work together in a synergistic way to create the superpower?

Jim:
Yeah, this is everything, and if people understand this framework I think that they have a lens to look at the world. So let’s say you have a goal and you want to get there as fast as you can. There are three components. Going back to that where you feel like you’re stuck in that box, the three-dimensional, the three forces that contain that box are the same three forces that will liberate you out of that box and give you the freedom that you desire and that you deserve. Those three dimensions are the three Ms, the mindset, motivation, and methods.
And so what I mean by that is let’s say you have a limitless mindset. Your mindset are your set of assumptions and attitudes you have about something, right? It could be about money or real estate or how difficult something is. Often the problem is not the problem. Often the problem is our perception or assumptions or attitudes about the problem itself. That’s usually the problem. And so with mindset, you have to unravel it because people don’t believe it’s possible or they’re capable or they deserve it, they’re still going to be stuck in that box. And so that’s why we go through all the lies that could be holding them back. We go through their self-talk. Some people, like in my case for memory, people say, “I don’t have a great memory.” They could just adjust it and say, “I don’t have great memory yet.” Something little like that opens up the possibility.
Now, somebody could have, they work on their mindset and they believe it’s possible, they have that growth mindset, it’s not fixed, and still be stuck because they’re not motivated. They don’t have the second key. They’re not motivated to get out of that box, right? They’re not motivated to get out of that financial situation or whatever, or their health situation or their relationship situation. For me, just for everyone listening, motivation I believe is not something you have. It’s something you do.
To attest to that, there are three things that will give you greater motivation, and this is the formula, motivation, limitless motivation, whether you want to motivate yourself or motivate someone to buy something or motivate your kids to clean their room or floss their teeth, you need P times E times S3. So we’ll deconstruct this. P is purpose. People will not buy or sell or go to the gym if they don’t feel the reason because we are not logical. People don’t buy logically. They buy what? They buy emotionally and they justify logically because we are not logical, we are biological. You think about the dopamine and the oxytocin and the serotonin, endorphins. We’re this chemical-feeling soup.

David:
You’re talking about what controls our decision making.

Jim:
Very much so. It’s how you feel because when you’re in a certain state, you’re going to make different decisions. If you’re coming from a state of fear or scarcity, you’re not going to see that opportunity and you’re sure not going to act on it. All learning, like life, is state dependent. So motivation is purpose and you need to feel that purpose because everyone knows intellectually why they should follow your advice, but if they’re not, check in with the first letter, the P. Do they have a reason and do they feel that reason, not intellectually know it, but feel it in their body?
But somebody could have limitless purpose and still not act because they need the E, P times E times S3. The E is energy. I realized that if people are struggling with mental fatigue, brain fog, lack of sleep, I mentioned I have a 10-month-old and we are not sleeping very well in this house, and I don’t feel very motivated to work out because I’m exhausted, and so optimizing. If somebody eats a big processed meal, they’re not going to feel like they want to be able to read, study, present, go on those sales calls, whatever, those showings, because they’re tired. So energy has to be optimized, and that’s why in the book we talk about 10 keys for literally limitless energy.
And then finally, somebody could have limitless purpose and energy and still not be motivated, they procrastinate because they need S3, and three Ss, small simple steps. What I mean by that is let’s just say exercise is great for your brain. You create brain-derived neurotropic factors, BDNF, which is like fertilizer for your brain. It helps lower systemic inflammation, helps with glucose sensitivity, all these great benefits, right? But if you’re not exercising on a regular, then maybe it’s too big. Some people set goals and then those are too big, and a confused mind won’t do anything. A confused mind won’t buy, right? They won’t sell. A confused mind, it will be disenabled, right?
And so how do you overcome that static where you don’t have momentum is a small simple step. And so maybe it’s not going to the gym. That’s too big for somebody who doesn’t exercise. Maybe a small simple step, put on your sneakers. Maybe somebody, you read to succeed. People have seen photos of me with Elon or Oprah, whoever, people ask how we bonded. We connected over books because you read to succeed. You can learn from other people’s mistakes because there’s two ways of learning something, right? Either through your own personal experience or from other people’s experience, and I’d rather… We hear about other people’s money, OPM, but what about how other people’s experiences? And so if someone has decades of experience like you guys do, and if you happen to put it into a book and someone could read that book in a few days, then they can download decades into days. They still need to do the work, but at least they have some ideas, some insights, some instructions, some models and so on.
So small simple step is so important. We have a podcast all on brain performance, and we had one of the top biological dentists there and we’re talking about oral hygiene is good for your brain health and talking about flossing, and if you can’t get your kids to floss their teeth, small simple step, get them to floss one tooth because nobody’s going to stop there. I was talking about leaders or readers. If you want to read 30 minutes a day and become an expert in your space and study everything that the latest and greatest in your industry and you’re not doing it, maybe a small simple step, open the book, right? Read one line.
And so how you find your small simple step, and people could write this down, this is a question I ask myself 10, 20 times a day, whenever I feel stalled or confused at the dilemma, I have to make a decision, I always ask myself this question verbatim, what is the tiniest action I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal where I can’t fail. What is the tiniest action I could take now, operative now, that will give me progress towards this goal, not away from this goal where I can’t fail? That’s where you’re going to get your S3, your small simple steps. And then that person’s going to be motivated. If they have purpose, they have energy, and they have a small simple step to take, little by little, little becomes a lot because inch by inch is a cinch. Yard by yard, it’s just way too hard.

Rob:
I love it. Yeah, I mean, this is something that very similar to what you and Brandon said for so many years, the MINS, the minimum important next step I think. Is that what it stood for?

David:
Most important next step.

Rob:
Most important next step where you break it down into a hundred steps. When you kind of do it that way, it’s really, anything is kind of easy.

Jim:
Yeah. And if you want to motivate someone else to buy, maybe they have purpose, they feel, and maybe they have energy or resources, money could be a form of energy, but maybe they’re not buying because you’re not making it simple enough for them to do. Give them small little steps so they have consistency and commitment.

Rob:
Yeah, this is something I break down really quite a bit for so many people when they’re like, “How do I get started? I don’t know where to get started.” And I’m like, “All right, well, what do you want to do?” “I want to buy a house.” “Okay, go to zillow.com, type in a city that you’re interested in. Call a realtor. Get pre-approved with a lender. Make an offer. Get declined. Make another…” And so it’s like when you really do break it down into even more minute steps than that, it’s kind of like, oh, okay, I guess buying a house is really just a series of very tiny steps to what seems like a giant significant goal. But everything is relatively easy when you break it down in small, snackable sizes.

Jim:
Yeah. And one step in another direction, remember, it completely changes your destination. And so getting people to act on those small simple steps, especially us, to overcome that fear, and maybe it’s not a big mistake, maybe it’s a small little step that we can’t fail at. So that’s the second part, the M. So you have mindset and motivation. But someone still could be stuck in that box because maybe they have the limitless mindset, they deserve it, it’s possible for them, and they’re motivated to get out of that box, but they could still be stuck in that box because they need the third M which are the right methods because some people are just using antiquated methods of marketing or sales or negotiation or legal. You have to upgrade your knowledge, skills, and abilities constantly to be able to create that kind of result.
And so I think a lot of times, especially in today’s economy and environment where everything going on in the world, sometimes we downgrade our dreams and our goals to meet the current situation, and I think it’s a big mistake. What we’re doing with clients is say, “Hey, don’t downgrade your dreams to meet the current situation. Instead, upgrade your mindset, your motivation and the methods you’re using to be able to meet those bold, audacious goals.”

David:
That’s fantastic.

Rob:
Love it.

David:
Jim, you already had me won over before we did this, but if I hadn’t have been won over, you would’ve won me over now.

Rob:
I just wish we were recording all of this.

David:
You’re like the Cinderella story for intelligence where you just got your butt kicked early on in life, and then in order to climb out of that hole you figured out how to put things into frameworks or models, and now you’re this gem of a human being that gets to share this information with everybody else who thankfully doesn’t have to go through all the pain that you did to get to this point. So thank you for your contribution to humanity as well as your contribution to our podcast.

Jim:
Thank you.

David:
If people want to know more about you and find the book, where can they go?

Jim:
I have a gift for everybody. This is something that we’ve used with our one-on-one clients for years and it doesn’t cost anything. There’s nothing to buy. But there’s a big chapter in the book that I want to give people, and it’s all about brain types. You know how there’s personalized medicine based on your genetics and there’s personalized nutrition based on your microbiome, we’ve created a way to personalize learning based on your brain type. I found out that there are about four specific brain types, and I use animals as the metaphor, and once you know your brain animal, you know because we’ll give you instruction on how to read faster, how to remember names, how to remember facts, client information, product information, all of that based on your brain animal, and people could take that quiz in four minutes. It’s so simple. You can have your team do it also. Have your family do it. It will open your mind, and it’s at mybrainanimal.com, mybrainanimal.com.
The book you can find anywhere. Limitless Book is probably the best place because we donate a hundred percent of the proceeds to charity to build schools for children in need. We built schools with the previous book in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, also Alzheimer’s Research in memory of my grandmother. So if you go to limitlessbook.com, you could get your copy there, and we’re going to gift you 13 days lessons on how to read faster, improve your memory. It’s a quick-start program that we sell for hundreds of dollars, way more than the investment of this book, and you can get it at limitlessbook.com.
I would challenge everyone, take a screenshot wherever you’re consuming this right now and tag us all on social media, and what I’m going to challenge you to do is share your brain animal from the quiz or share one thing you’re going to do for a better brain. Maybe you’re going to prioritize your sleep. Maybe you’re going to just eat a little bit better today. Maybe you’re going to do some exercise today. Maybe you’re going to read something today, study, but one thing, and because you tag us all in it, we’ll get to see it obviously, and I’ll repost some of my favorites, and I’ll actually gift three or four copies of the book out to your community just as a thank you for having me on your show.

Rob:
Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you for that. That’s amazing.

David:
That’s awesome. And the book comes out today. As we’re listening to this podcast, the book is out now. So there you go, folks. You’re part of an exclusive community of people that heard about this the day that it comes out. So go pick up your copy at Limitless Book. Do you have any social media or anywhere where people can follow you, Jim?

Jim:
Yeah. I’m not hard to find, Jim Kwik, you just have to spell it right, K-W-I-K, on all social media. It’s my real last name. I didn’t change it to do this line of work. It’s my father’s name, my grandfather’s name.

David:
Jim’s so quick they call him Nestle on the streets.

Rob:
Oh, like Nesquik. Love it.

David:
Yeah, Nestle quick. All right, Rob, where can people find out more about you?

Rob:
You can find me over on YouTube and Instagram on Robuilt, R-O-B-U-I-L-T, and I teach you real estate and short-term rentals and the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness and all that stuff. But what about you?

David:
You can find me at davidgreene24.com where you won’t find any of those things, but you will figure out ways you can help people build their wealth, as well as davidgreene24. Jim, thanks again for being on, man. Best of luck to you with the book. Thanks for writing it and keep them coming. All right, that was our interview with brain coach, Jim Kwik. Rob, do you feel smarter yet?

Rob:
Absolutely. I leveled up listening to that guy. Man, he’s so smart and brought up a lot of really amazing concepts that, honestly, I feel really parallel a lot of the things you outlined in Pillars of Wealth. What do you think?

David:
Yeah, that is a great point there. I talk a lot about in Pillars, especially in the second pillar which is the art of making more money, being better at your job and bringing more value, it’s all about personal development. That’s what leads to your ability to make more money. It is growing yourself, and Jim talked about that exact same concept. How do you get smarter, how do you remember things better, how do you increase your confidence, how do you build momentum, those are literally chapters in the book. How to build momentum, confidence has to do with building skills, and I talk about that as well as taking on more responsibility. So as he was talking, I was thinking, “Oh, this is all the stuff that’s in the book.” So make sure you get a copy of Limitless, Jim’s new book, and then get a copy of Pillars of Wealth and pair them together like cabernet and red meat.

Rob:
Now I’m hungry for steak and wine, but I’m going to read this book. I think the thing I took away from this is consistency is how you keep the skills that you’ve done. I’m going to go look at my business and see where I’ve been inconsistent because most of the time when there’s a problem in my business, it’s because I’ve been horribly inconsistent with my processes and systems. So that’s what I took away from today.

David:
And if you liked today’s show and you want to hear more from Mr. Jim Kwik, check out BiggerPockets Podcast episode number 443 to hear our first interview with him, and Jim will be on the Rookie Podcast episode 344 as well. Thanks again. We love you guys. We appreciate your patronage. If you’ve got a minute, check out another BiggerPockets video, and if you don’t, we will see you next week. This is David Greene for Rob doesn’t-quite-understand-urban-references Abasolo signing off.