By Manuel “Bobby” Orig, Consultant, Apo Agua
LIMITLESS
By Jim Kwik
UPGRADE YOUR BRAIN, LEARN ANYTHING FASTER AND UNLOCK YOUR EXCEPTIONAL LIFE
Your brain is the most powerful technology in the world, but you never got the owner’s manual. Until now.
You have no limitations. In spite of what others have told you, your potential is infinite – when you know how to use your brain.
For over 25 years, renowned brain coach Jim Kwik has worked closely with top actors, athletes, CEOs, and superachievers in all walks of life to unlock their true capabilities. In this groundbreaking book, he reveals the science -based practices and field-tested techniques that the world’s top performers use to accelerate their learning and create world-class results.
At the heart of Limitless lies a life-changing secret: when you learn how to learn, you can break free of limiting beliefs, achieve new levels of success, and lead a truly exceptional life. This book is not theory. It’s a practical, easy, and proven blueprint that shows you exactly what to do to unleash your own limitless power.
Praise or the book:
“Jim Kwik makes us smarter! I know because Jim taught me to reframe how I understand my own limits and learn how to tap unused capacity in my brain.”
—SIMON SINEK, bestselling author of The Infinite Game
“There’s no genius pill, but Jim gives you the process for unlocking your best brain and brightest future.”
—MARK HYMAN, M.D., head of Strategy and Innovation, Cleveland Clinic Center for functional medicine
About the author:
JIM KWIK is a widely recognized expert in memory improvement, brain optimization, and accelerated learning. For more than 25 years, he has served as the brain coach to who’s who of Hollywood elite, political leaders, and business magnates, with corporate clients that include Google, Virgin, Nike, Zappos, SpaceX, GE, and such institutions as the United Nations, Caltech, Harvard University, and Singularity University.
Through keynote speeches, he reaches in-person live audiences totaling 200,000 every year; his online videos have garnered hundreds of millions of views. Kwik is regularly featured in media, including Forbes, Huffpost, Fast Company, Inc., and CNBC. kwikLearning.com’s online courses are used by students in 195 countries.
INTRODUCTION
What is your one wish? Seriously, if a genie offered to grant you one wish, and only one, what would you ask for?
Limitless wishes, of course!
Now, imagine that the author is your learning genie and can grant you one learning wish – any one subject or skill. What one thing would you want to learn? What subject or skill would be the equivalent of asking for infinite wishes.
To learn how to learn, right?
If you really knew how to learn smarter, faster, and better, then you can apply that to everything. You could learn to master your mindset or your motivation, or music, martial arts, mathematics – there would be no limit. You’d be a mental superhero! Anything would be possible, because you would be limitless!
By reading this book, you are far ahead of most of the population who simply accept their present conditions and constraints. You are part of a small group of individuals who not only want more for their lives but also are willing to do what it takes to get results. In other words, you are the hero of this story; you answered the call to adventure. The author believes that the ultimate adventure we are all on is to reveal and realize our true potential and inspire others to do the same.
The author has no way of knowing how your life’s journey. But he is guessing that at least part of that journey is accepting the confines put upon you, either by others or by yourself: You can’t read fast enough to keep up with everything you need to know. Your mind is not agile enough to succeed at work. You’re not motivated to get things done or you lack the energy to reach your goals. And so on.
The nature of this book is transcending – ending the trance: the mass hypnosis and lies that we learned from our parents, programming, media, or marketing, that suggests we are limited. That somehow, we are not enough, not capable of being, doing, having, creating, or contributing.
Belief that you are limited might be holding you back from your biggest dreams as well – at least up until now. But the author promise you that none of these beliefs truly constrains who you are. We all have vast potential inside us, untapped levels of strength, intelligence and focus, and the key to activating these superpowers is unlimiting yourself. The author discovered that no matter where you come from, no matter what challenges you face, you have incredible potential that’s just waiting to be tapped. Every person, regardless of age, background, education, gender, or personal history – can advance beyond what they believe they deserve and is possible. And that includes you.
In this book, the author refer to superheroes and superpowers. Why is that? Because of his childhood brain injury and learning challenges, he escaped into comic books and movies to inspire him during his struggles. He realized that his favorite ones all shared the same pattern – the Hero’s Journey. This includes The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars; Harry Potter; Eat, Pray, and Love, The Hunger Games, Rocky, Matrix, and more.
The hero starts out in the ordinary world, the world they’ve always known. The hero then hears the call to adventure. They have a choice – to ignore and stay in the ordinary world, where nothing will change, or heed the call and enter the new world of the unknown. If they heed the call, they meet their guide or mentor who trains and prepare them to overcome obstacles and realize new levels of fulfillment. The hero is introduced to new powers and skills, and encouraged to utilize their current abilities like never before. They transcend perceived limitations, learn a new way of being, and eventually face their trials. When they return back to the ordinary world, they take with them the ultimate boon – the treasure, emotions, strength, clarity, and wisdom they discovered from their adventure. They then share their lessons and gifts to others.
The Hero’s Journey is the perfect structure to lend power and purpose to your personal story. In Limitless you are the superhero.
BECOMING LIMITLESS
“I’m so stupid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m too dumb to learn.”
These were the author’s mantras growing up. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t tell himself that he was slow, dumb, and that he would never learn to read, much less amount to anything later in life.
This all stems from an incident in kindergarten that completely altered the course of his life. He was in the class one day, and there were sirens outside the window. Everyone in the classroom took notice, and the teacher looked out and said she saw firetrucks. The entire class responded to this information the way kindergarteners do: They immediately rushed to the windows. He was particularly excited because, by that point, he was already obsessed with superheroes. He bolted to the window with everyone else.
But then one of the other kids grabbed the chair that he was standing on, which caused him to lose balance and go flying head first into the radiator. He hit the metal heater extremely hard and he started losing blood. The school rushed him to the hospital, where doctors tended to his wounds. But they were candid with his mother afterward; the injury to his brain was not mild.
THE BOY WITH THE BROKEN BRAIN
In the real world, life was not very kind. It was around this time that his grandmother, who live with them and helped raise him, started showing advanced signs of dementia. She was his world and, combined with his learning challenges, she is why he is so passionate about brain health and fitness.
Back in school, he was bullied and made fun of. He remember one day in elementary school a teacher, frustrated because he wasn’t getting the lesson, pointed at him and said, “That’s the boy with the broken brain.” He was just crushed to realize that this was how she saw him – and others probably saw him the same way.
Often when you put a label on someone or something, you create a limit – the label becomes the limitation. Adults have to be very careful with their external words because these quickly become a child’s internal words.
UNLIMITING TOGETHER
Unlimiting (noun)
The act or process of casting aside inaccurate and restrictive prescriptions of one’s potential and embracing the reality that, with the right mindset, motivation, and methods, there are no limitations.
For so much of the author’s life, he allowed himself to be defined by his perceived restrictions. He’d gotten what he thought was a terrible break when he was a kid, and he was convinced that this had set the course for a compromised future. But, with the help of some key people, he came to discover that his perceived restrictions were not really restrictions at all. They were merely obstacles he needed to overcome or limitations he needed to unlearn. And when he did, what he could learn to be or do each day became limitless.
Becoming limitless is not just about accelerated learning, speed-reading, and having an incredible memory. But being limitless is not about being perfect. It’s about progressing beyond what you currently believe is possible. Just as you have learned limits from your family, culture, and life experiences, you can unlearn them.
The key when you are taking your steps is to have a map, a model of success. Armed with this, there is no trial you can’t overcome. So here it is:
THE LIMITLESS MODEL
You can learn to be, do, have, and share with no constraints. If you are not learning or living at your full potential, if there is a gap between your current reality and your desired reality, here’s the reason: There is a limit that must be released and replaced in one of three areas:
- A limit in your Mindset – you entertain a low belief in yourself, your capabilities, what you deserve, or what is possible.
- A limit in your Motivation – you lack the drive, purpose, or energy to take action.
- A limit in your Methods – you were thought and are acting on a process that is not effective to create the results you desire.
This applies to an individual, a family, an organization. We all have our own unique story of struggles and strengths. Whatever your situation happens to be, here’s the best part: You’re not alone. The author is going to help you become limitless in your own way, within the three-part framework: Limitless Mind, Limitless Motivation, and Limitless Methods.
- Mindset: (the WHAT): deeply held beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions we create about who we are, how the world works, what we are capable of and deserve, and what is possible.
- Motivation (the WHY): the purpose one has for taking action. The energy required for someone to behave in a particular way.
- Method (the HOW): a specific process for accomplishing something, especially an orderly, logical, or systematic way of instruction.
You’ll see that where the mindset crosses over motivation, you have the word inspiration. You’re inspired but you don’t know which methods to employ or where to channel your energy.
Where motivation and method intersect, you have implementation. In this case, your results are going to be limited to what you feel you deserve, what you feel you are capable of, and what you believe is possible because you lack the proper mindset.
Where mindset and method intersect, you have ideation. Your ambitions stay in your mind, because you lack the energy to do anything about them.
Where all three intersect, you have the limitless state. You then have the fourth I, which is integration.
TURN ON THE POWER
The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.
—Eric Ries
A quick, often-told story: One day at a power plant, everything comes to an abrupt halt. All of the machines go offline. The people running the plant are frantic and after hours and hours, none of the workers can track down the problem. The head of operations is desperate at this point, so he calls the best local help he can find.
The expert technician arrives and glances around the facility. He goes to one of the numerous beams among all the electrical boxes, opens one of them, and stares at the various screws and wires inside. He turns one screw, and, like magic, everything starts working again and the plant comes back to life.
The head of operations is so relieved. He thanks the technician and asks him what he owes him. The technician says, $10,000. The head of operations is shocked. “What do you mean $10,000? You turned one single screw. Anyone could have done that. I need an itemized bill please.”
The technician reaches into his pocket, pulls out a notepad, scribbles for a few seconds, and hands the other man the bill. The head of operations reads it and immediately pays him. The bill read: Turning screw $1. Knowing which screw to turn: $9,999.”
What’s the lesson of the story? It’s not that you have a screw loose. The story illustrates two things.
The first is how much added value a limitless mind can offer you and others. We’ve entered an expert economy in which brain power trumps brute strength. Where what you have between your ears is your greatest wealth-creating asset. There are those who know and those who don’t know. And that applied knowledge is not just power, it’s profit. Your ability to think, solve problems, make the right decisions, create, innovate, and imagine is how we add value. The faster you can learn, the faster you can earn.
The second lesson is one screw made all the difference. The author had mentored and coached some amazing minds, and you don’t have to be a genius to see that genius leaves clues. One of those patterns is that elite mental performers filter and focus for those handful of “screws” that make all the difference and turn everything else on.
The world is throwing more challenges at you than ever before, and there’s every indication that those challenges will continue to increase. At the same time, there is more to be gained from having a finely tuned brain than ever before, and you know now that you have more than enough potential to meet any challenge.
LIMITLESS MINDSET
THE WHAT
Mindset (noun)
The deeply held beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions we create about who we are, how the world works, and what we are capable of and deserve, and what is possible.
The first element in the three-part Limitless Model is Mindset, which is the mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person’s responses to and interpretations of situations. Mindset is made up of beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes we hold about ourselves and the world around us. All behavior is driven by belief, so before we address how to learn, we must first address the underlying beliefs we hold about what is possible.
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
—Albert Einstein
We’re not born with pre-installed mindsets about what we’re capable of achieving – we learn these fixed and limited ways of thinking from the people in our lives and the culture we experience growing up.
Think of a young elephant tied to a stake in the ground. When it’s a baby, the elephant isn’t strong enough to pull the stake up, so it eventually stops trying because it learns the effort is futile. As the elephant grows, it gains more than enough power and strength to pull out the stake, but it remains tied up by something as inconsequential as a rope and a flimsy piece of metal because of what it learned as a baby. In psychology, it’s called learned helplessness.
Most of us behave like that elephant. At some point, we had an experience that gave us the impression of what we’re capable of, and our belief about our potential has been set ever since. But just as helplessness is learned, it’s just as possible to learn to be limitless.
THE SPELL OF BELIEF SYSTEMS
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so
—Mark Twain
Why do your beliefs have such effect on your life?
Why do limiting beliefs keep you from your goals?
How do you reject limiting beliefs?
A bridge is about to collapse because a supervillain has weakened the supports to the point where the entire thing is going to go crumbling into the river. As the bridge creeks and teeters, our superhero learns about the crisis and races to the scene. She’s the only person with the strength to avert catastrophe and save hundreds of lives.
Our superhero is less than 10 seconds from the bridge now. But as she gets closer, a voice in her head reminds her of the time she face-planted while doing a somersault in elementary school. A couple of seconds later, she recalls her father telling her that it would be best if she sets her sights low for her future.
Rubble from the bridge topples into the water. The creaking gets louder. The screams of dozens and dozens fill the air.
And our superhero, overwhelmed with doubt, sits down by the side of the road, covers her face with her hands, and drowns in self-pity.
Wait… what?
You’ve never seen the scene in a superhero movie, right? There are some reasons for that. One is that it would be a terrible story. Another is that, regardless of the darkness in their past or the moral conflicts they might be facing, superheroes don’t become superheroes by giving in to limiting beliefs. Superheroes doesn’t think that, maybe on a good day, he might be able to leap a tall building. Captain Marvel doesn’t break through our atmosphere and suddenly start thinking. “I’m not sure I have the emotional capacity to fly through space.” They have superpowers and any sense of restriction be damned.
And you know what? You have superpowers too. How do you realize them? You begin with your mindset.
WHAT LIMITING BELIEFS DO TO US
Limiting beliefs are often revealed in our self-talk, that inner conversation that focuses on what you’re convinced you can’t do rather than what you already excel at and what you’re going to continue to achieve today and into the future. How often do you stop yourself from attempting to do something or from pursuing a dream because that voice convinces you that it is beyond your reach? If this sounds like you, you are very far from alone, but you’re also not doing yourself any favors.
“We come into this world not knowing if life is hard or easy, if money is scarce or abundant, if we’re important or unimportant. We look at two people who know everything: our parents,” said belief change expert Shelly Lefkoe. Parents are our first teachers, and although they meant us no harm, we still come away from our childhoods with the limiting beliefs they unconsciously instilled in us.
Limiting beliefs can stop you in your tracks even when you’re doing something at which you normally excel. Now take that situation and extend it to an entire segment of your life. Your career aspirations, perhaps, or your ability to make friends. If your limiting beliefs are in control, you could find yourself mired in underachievement, either wondering why you never really get ahead or convinced that you don’t deserve it.
REFRAMING LIMITING BELIEFS
There’s a metaphor that’s useful when helping people move away from limiting beliefs. The author tell them the difference between limiting beliefs and a limitless mindset is like the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. A thermometer has only one function: to react to the environment. It reads the temperature and nothing more. This is similar to how people commonly react to limiting beliefs. They read their sense of restriction, react in a constrained way to that, and conduct their lives in a limited way.
On the other hand, a thermostat gauges the environment and makes the environment react to it. If a thermostat notices that a room is too cold or too hot, it changes the environment to be ideal for which it is set. Similarly, if you encounter external or internal attempts to put constraints on you, you can act like a thermostat to reject those limiting beliefs and create an environment that aligns you with your most ambitious goals.
LIMITLESS MOTIVATION
THE WHY
Culture is nourishd by human motivation, a limitless resource that can sometimes be underestimated.
—Lynne Doughtie
Motivation (noun)
The purpose one has for taking action. The energy required for someone to behave in a particular way.
Motivation is not something you wake up with or not. We put ourselves in a trance when we say’ “I don’t have any motivation.” Motivation is not something you have; it’s something you do. And it’s entirely sustainable. Unlike a warm bath, it’s not something that you experience for a moment and lose unless you heat it up again. Motivation isn’t derived from a seminar that temporarily pumps you up. It’s a process. And since it’s a strategy you have control over it and can create it consistently by following the right recipe.
Here’s the formula: Motivation = Purpose x Energy x S3
When you combine purpose, energy, and small steps (S3), you get sustainable motivation. And the ultimate form of motivation is the state of flow. Think about it as energy management. Creating it, investing it, and not wasting it. A clear purpose or reason gives you energy. Practices you employ will cultivate energy for your brain and the rest of your body, and small simple steps require little energy.
PURPOSE
How do certain defining phrases determine who you are?
How do your values define you?
What does your sense of purpose say about who you are?
START WITH WHY
Among the author’s favorite books is Start with Why by Simon Sinek. Sinek often stresses the importance of being able to convey to others why you do what you do. If, he explains, you can articulate the belief that is driving you (your why), people will want what you are offering. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it, so it follows that if you don’t know why you do what you do, how will anyone else?”
We hear the words purpose and goals used frequently in business, but do they really know what they mean and how they are the same or different? A goal is the point one wishes to achieve. A purpose is the reason one aims at to achieve a goal.
Whether your goal is to read a book a week, learn another language, get in shape, or just leave the office on time to see your family, these are all things that you need to achieve. But how do you do this? One of the popular ways is setting SMART goals:
- S is for Specific : Your goal should be well defined. Don’t say you want to be rich; say you want to make a certain amount of money.
- M is measurable: If you can’t measure your goal, you can’t manage it. Getting fit isn’t measurable – running a six-minute mile is.
- A is for Actionable: You wouldn’t drive to a new town without asking directions. Develop the action steps to achieve your goal.
- R is for Realistic: If you’re living in your parent’s basement, it’s hard to become a millionaire. Your goal should challenge and stretch you, but not so much that you give up on them.
- T is for Time-based: The phrase, “A goal is a dream with a deadline” comes to mind. Setting a time to complete your goal makes you that much more likely to reach it.
The challenge for many people is that this process, while logical, is very heady. To get your goals out of your head and into your hands, make sure they fit with your emotions – with your HEART:
- H is for Healthy: How can you make sure your goals support your greater well-being. Your goals should contribute to your mental, physical, and emotional health.
- E is for Enduring: Your goals should inspire and sustain you during difficult times when you want to quit.
- A is for Alluring: You shouldn’t always have to push yourself to work on your goals. They should be so exciting, enticing, and engaging that you’re pulled toward them.
- R is for Relevant: Don’t set a goal without knowing why you’re setting it. Ideally, your goal should relate to a challenge you’re having, your life’s purpose, or your core values.
- T is for Truth: Don’t set a goal just because your neighbor is doing it or your parents expect it of you. Make sure your goal is something that remains true to you. If your goal isn’t true to you, you’re far more likely to procrastinate and sabotage yourself.
ON PURPOSE AND PASSION
Knowing your purpose in life helps you live with integrity. People who know their purpose in life know who they are, what they are, and why they are. And when you know yourself, it becomes easier to live a life that’s true to your core values..
Your life purpose consists of the central motivating aims of your life – the reasons you get up in the morning. Purpose can guide life decisions, influence behavior, shape goals, offer a sense of direction, and create meaning. For the author, his life purpose is to create a world of better, brighter brains.
Passion and purpose are in the same camp – they’re often confused with one another. Both concepts are discussed all over the Internet, in motivational books, in TED talks. It’s easy to feel as if you must be lacking if you don’t feel a burning passion or purpose in your life. In the author’s experience, however, passion and purpose are not the same thing; instead one leads to the other.
Finding your passion is not about choosing the right path or finding the perfect professional destiny. It’s about experimenting to see what ignites your joy. Passion comes when we rediscover our authentic, alive self, the one who has been muted and buried beneath a pile of other people’s expectations. Instead, the author believes that when we exchange a fixed mindset for a growth mindset, we learn that interests can be developed through experience, investment, and struggle.
To sum it up, passion is what lights you up inside. The author’s passion to learn was born out of such a struggle that it became a major part of his life’s identity.
Purpose, however, is how you relate to other people. Purpose is what you’re here to share with the world. It’s how you use your passion. When we get down to it, we all have the same purpose: to help people through our passion. The greater task we have in life is to share the knowledge and skills we accumulate. It doesn’t have to be more complex than that.
LIMITLESS METHODS
THE HOW
Method (noun)
A scientific process for accomplishing something, especially an orderly, logical, or systematic way of instruction.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
—Alvin Toffler
Methods are the procedures or processes for accomplishing something. In this context, method is the process of learning how to learn, also called meta learning. When we go through the education system, we are taught very antiquated and inefficient ways of learning, such as sub-vocalization and rote memorization. When the author was struggling as “the boy with the broken brain,” he wasn’t incapable of learning in the way he was taught. It wasn’t until he mastered a new way of learning – a method, that he could finally use his brain to excel.
Most of us think of lack of concentration as a function of our mind bouncing from place to place. Hindu priest, entrepreneur, and former monk Dandapani has a different – and a more helpful metaphor. To him, it isn’t your mind that’s moving; it’s your awareness. He sees awareness as a glowing ball of light that moves to different parts of your mind. In order to excel at concentration, you need to make yourself keep that ball of light trained on your spot in your mind for an extended period. This won’t be easy at first, but a conscious effort to exercise your will power in this way is likely to lead to impressive results.
FOCUS
What can I learn from what I’m like when I’m most focused?
How can I increase my ability to concentrate?
How do I limit my distractions and calm my busy mind?
What’s the difference between someone performing at superhero levels and someone failing to ever discover their superpowers? In many cases, it’s a matter of focus. We can be sure that you’ve had numerous times in your life when you’ve really locked on a task. Maybe it was writing a report that mattered a great deal to you. Maybe it was having a session with a mentor you love. Maybe it was attacking a bowl of your favorite ice cream. How did you do with these tasks? In all likelihood, you crushed them, writing one of the best reports of your life, learning huge amounts from your mentor, and devouring that ice cream like it was the last dessert in the world. That happened because you were able to train your focus to the task at hand, get right on that task, and not let anything distract you from that task. So why do most of us have only so much ability to maintain focus? Simply, because we were never taught to do so.
Focus allows us to train our brain power on a particular task to burn through that task. It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we’re focused. Conversely, when we’re less focused, we’re less likely to accomplish what we truly want to do because we’re not just as committed – both emotionally and physically – to doing it. The primary enemy to focus is distraction.
PRACTICING CONCENTATION
“Concentration is at the crux of all human success and endeavor,” Hindu priest, entrepreneur, and former monk Dandapani said, “If you can’t concentrate, you can’t manifest.” What Dandapani is saying is that concentration is a critical component of anything you want to accomplish. But like so many other things, we’ve never really been taught how to concentrate. Sure, our parents and our teachers might have implored us to concentrate harder, maybe even criticizing our lack of focus, “Why can’t you just concentrate?” But the simple answer to that is that most of us never learned how.
Dandapani points out that concentration is like a muscle that gets stronger the more you exercise it. “Concentration is something you can learn and something you can practice to get better at,” he said. However, what most of us practice instead is distraction. We allow our minds to jump from thought to thought, often using technology to help us practice distraction until we’re experts at it – and we should be, because we often get a dozen or more hours of practice a day. Just imagine what it would be like if we practiced concentration for even a fraction of that.
Dandapani has a remarkably clear way of looking at this. “I define concentration as my ability to keep my awareness on one thing for an extended period of time. Every time my concentration drifts, I use my willpower to bring my awareness back.”
CONCLUSION
RETURN OF THE POSSIBLE
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
—T.S. Elliot
If you’re anything like the overwhelming majority of people in the world, you were being governed – either consciously or unconsciously, or both – by a suite of limitations you’d either imposed on yourself or others had imposed on you.
Maybe you wanted to learn a new ability, but you were sure you didn’t have the capacity to do it. Maybe you wanted to throw your hat in the ring for a big work promotion, but your inner voice kept telling you that you really didn’t have the competence for it. Maybe you were convinced that you were always going to leave the house without your phone, or you were never going to remember all the names of all the people at your next social gathering, or you were forever going to be the boring guy reading his speech from a piece of paper. If this has ever described you in any way, now that you’ve read this book, the author hope you’re ready to wave goodbye to that person.
Instead, let’s meet the limitless you.
The limitless you has a limitless mindset. You no longer believe that there are all sorts of things you can’t be or do. There might be all sorts of things you haven’t done yet, and there might be all sorts of things that you’ve had trouble in the past, but the limitless you knows your past doesn’t equal your future. The limitless you understands that your brain is a much more powerful tool than you might have previously imagined and that, by setting your mind to learning whatever you want to learn, you can conquer just about any skill.
The limitless you also has limitless motivation. In the past, maybe you could conceive of a more ambitious life, but you couldn’t actually get yourself to take action. Now, though, you know how to align your habits with your ambitions; you’re capable of making a commitment to lifelong learning and lifelong improvement and it’s a natural to you as getting dressed in the morning.
You also know how to fuel your brain with food and sleep and exercise so that you start your day in the best place, and you’re always ready to take on new and demanding challenges. And you know how to tap into the flow so that, once you start a task, you can dive into it completely. And perhaps most significantly, the limitless you has unlocked the methods of learning how to learn. By discovering this, you have become exponentially more powerful than you were before. Beyond a few limitations, if you can learn it, you can do it. And the tools you now have at your disposal allow you to learn anything faster. When you couple that with the skills you’ve gained in unlimiting your focus, your memory, your thinking, and your reading, you’re in possession of the ultimate superhero kit.
A superhero is not just someone who has discovered and developed their superpowers. Every hero must eventually return to their world and serve. They must bring with them the lessons and wisdom they won through their journey. They must not only integrate their powers into their lives, but they must learn to use their powers to help others. At the end of the movie The Matrix, Neo has won the battle and broken free of limits. In his last phone call to the Matrix, Neo says, “ I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules, borders, or boundaries. A world where anything is possible.” He’s returning to the ordinary world, but with a mission to inspire others to free their minds.
The author’s hope is that you not only take what you’ve learned in this book and make your life better with it, but that you make the lives of those around you better, too. The formula is: Learn. Earn. Return. No hero’s journey is exclusively for the benefit of the hero. With your newfound knowledge, help those around you to learn better and faster and unlimit themselves.
In the film Lucy, an American student played by Scarlett Johansson develops superhuman powers after the full potential of her brain is unleashed. Professor Norman, played by Morgan Freeman, is a neurologist who helps Lucy cope with the startling changes taking place in her mind and body. When asked by Lucy what to do with her new gifts, Professor Norman replied:
You know … if you think about the very nature of life – I mean, in the very beginning, the development of the first cell divided into two cells – the sole purpose of life has been to pass on what was learned. There was no higher purpose. So if you’re asking me what to do with all this knowledge you’re accumulating I say … Pass it on.
So now the question becomes this: What are you going to do with what you’ve learned? Solve a challenging problem at work so you and your colleagues have an impact on your industry, and maybe your world? Start a book club? Make a dent in that huge stack of periodicals on your coffee table, and then teach your children what you’ve learned? Connect with people in more dynamic ways? Sign up for the class that is going to open new doors for you? Or maybe sign up to teach a class yourself? Which would you choose?
That’s what a superhero would do. That’s what the limitless you can do.
Now is the time to start to use all of what you’ve learned in concert. Start with one thing, but start somewhere. Anywhere. And when you do, you’re going to be stunned by what you uncover about yourself. The limitless is the person you truly are and the person who, over time, will become things you can’t even conceive of now.
Know yourself. Trust yourself. Love yourself. Be yourself.
And remember, the life you live are the lessons you teach. Be limitless.
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