Tuesday, June 29, 2021
Welcome to my Reading Tuesday’s B.R.E.A.T.H.S. blog. This past month, I dove into Jim Kwik’s “Limitless” book and unofficial workbook by Intensive Life Publishing, “Workbook for Jim Kwik’s Limitless.” Jim’s #1 message that came through to me while I first listened to his book was to teach what I learn and that is what I am here to do with this blog. After deep diving into the “Limitless” book, I shared my book review and also the review of the workbook. Last week, I reviewed Jim’s 10-Day Kwik Start Plan in the back of the “Limitless” book. This final week in June, I am reviewing the 5-Day Kwik Reading Challenge Jim had back in May to celebrate the book’s one year anniversary.
5-Day Kwik Reading Challenge
To celebrate the one year release date and ultimate success of his first book, “Limitless,” Jim Kwik hosted an hour-long presentation for five consecutive days to engage with his readers and help propel them further on their limitless journeys. I was excited to see and hear Jim talk about his book as it has been a big influence in my life this last year. Below I will review each of the 5-Day Warm-ups and the 5 daily challenges with my typed “taking limitless notes” from his lessons and handwritten/hand drawn “making limitless notes,” that help me to relate and remember the information better.
Kwik Warm-Ups
- Warm-Up 1: Read a book a week, that’s 52 a year, imagine how your mind would be different.
- Warm-Up 2: Stay consistent, start with 20 pages a day and build from there
- Warm-Up 3: Build comprehension, take notes and make notes (see examples below)
- Warm-Up 4: Take brain breaks, time box your reading and take breaks in between (I use Esington glass timers, 25 min productivity, 5 min break)
5 Daily Kwik Challenges
Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 1: THE SPEED
Little by little, a little becomes a lot
Limitless Model 3-M’s (LIE – limited idea entertained)
- Mindset
- Methods
- Motivation
- Inspiration
- Ideation
- Implementation
- Integration = Limitless
What is my new read speed this week? 25 lines, 14 words = 350 wpm
Four reasons why we don’t read fast
- Education
- Focus
- Subvocalization
- Regression
Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 2: COMPREHENSION
3 R’s for comprehension
- READ-to comprehend
- RITE-notes (right side/capture/note taking/strategies, left side/create/note making/impressions of what i am capturing)
- RELATE-talk about what you just read-the explanation effect, you learn it twice when you explain it.
Watch Yourself
Words
Actions
Character
Habits
Life is Birth to Choice to Death (Life = B to C to D)
The most important thing, is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing
The problem is not enough time, its not the right priority
Be kind to myself
Reading is to your mind as exercise is to your body
Mastery of transferring knowledge
Knowledge is not power, it is potential power
All behavior is belief driven
Faster readers have better focus
Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 3: CONCENTRATION
Read nonfiction during day and fiction at night
Learn, earn, return
Focus is a verb not a noun
Transcending (ending the trance)
Not things you have, you do (I don’t have energy, I don’t have money, I don’t have focus)
When Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS)
Leaders are readers
Don’t look at your phone for the first 30 minutes. Peace of mind, productivity,
1-Rewires brain for distraction
Lose-Time, mistakes, energy
2-Rewires day for reaction
Brush teeth with opposite hand (focused and uses other side of brain), be present and focused in the morning
You inbox is an convenient organizational system for other people’s agenda
Learning and relationships are infinite games
Dopamine detox – take time to disconnect to reconnect
Meditate 2x a day for 20 minutes to reset
RAS – reticular activating system, directs focus, EQ emotional intelligence, reading fiction
Habit design, make things good for me easy, and things bad for me hard
EX: put book instead of phone by my bed
FOCUS = Fixed Ongoing Concentration Until Successful
The person that falls the most, has the most strength
Mistakes are good, but OLD
Own (don’t blame or complain) You can not be upset from the results from the work not done
Learn – no failure, just failure to learn, if failure is not an option, than neither is success
Don’t repeat mistakes
Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 4: RETENTION
Space between the ears
MEMORY 80%
How to remember what you read
Easy as P.I.E.
Place-location (remember where people are sitting, where do I know this person)
Imagine-imagination (visualization, better visual memory, remember face over name)
Entwine-association (what does it sound like or remind me of)
What I hear I forget, what I see I remember, what I do I understand
Practice makes progress
Brain works 3 ways:
- Encoding
- Storing
- Retrieving
No such thing as a good or bad memory, there’s a trained brain and an untrained brain
- Top
- Nose
- Mouth
- Ears
- Throat
- Shourders
- Collar
- Fingers
- Belly
- Seat
7-Principles to influence: combined with top ten (once you know, you remember)
- Reciprocity-what does it look like? What sounds like it (Recipe city)
- Commitment-ring (nose ring)
- Social proof- (talking evidence)
- Liking-(dog licking ears)
- Authority-judge speaks law
- Scarcity-scary shoulders
- Unity-you knitting
Exercise my brain:
Read
Focus
Brain food
Meditation
Together everyone achieves more (magic)
Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 5: MOTIVATION
Reading 20 pages a day
Introvert has 5 gold coins, Extrovert always looking for coins (ambivert, likes to socialize and be expressive, but needs to recover alone)
Hero’s Journey – Three M’s
Methods the last four days
Mindset and Motivation (motive for taking action)
Stop listening to L.I.E.s
Limited
Ideas
Entertained
Active retrieval, we learn by putting in and pulling out
Genius is built, discipline, determination, and practice (its not born)
Growth Mindset
M-I can learn from my Mistakes
I-I can Improve by working hard
N-I will Never give up
D-I am determined to do my best
S-Self Reflection will help me succeed
E-I can overcome challenges with Effort
T-I can Train my brain
STOP caring what others think, overthinking, complaining, comparing, condemning, criticizing, gossip, procrastinating, expectations, obligations,
Belief that I am capable and I do have potential, If you fight for your limits you get to keep them
Motivation = gas/fuel = what drives me
3-keys to Motivation, formula PxExS(3), thought experiment,
Reasons reap results and rewards
1-Head, 2-Heart, 3-Hands
- P=Purpose (who’s counting on me to show up)
- E=Energy (You do not have energy, you do energy) Priority management,
- progress not perfect
- Food, thoughts, movement, supplements,
- S(3) = Small Simple Steps
- Opening book, reading one line, reading page
- Little by little, a little becomes a lot
Kwik Challenge Conclusion
Throughout the five days, Jim Kwik asked us to take some snapshots of our progress and share it on social media with the incentive of winning a Kwik Brain Box. I REALLY wanted that box for several reasons, 1. Signed hardcopy of “Limitless”, 2. Other brain goodies, and 3. My name has the word brain in it, so I love everything about the brain. I snapped pics to share on Instagram and on the Kwik Brain app. On the fifth day, I received a message from admin in the Kwik Brain app that I was one of the Brain Box winners! I was so excited I recorded myself opening the Brain Box. The 5-Day Challenge along with the 10-day Kwik Start Plan got me well enough started on my limitless journey. However, I still craved some more direction and decided to purchase Jim’s 21-Day Kwik Reading program so that I could improve upon my speed reading skills to help me research more efficiently. I will be completing that program during the month of July and reporting back here with the review in August.
Thank you for reading and following along on my limitless journey,
Dr. Jaime Brainerd, Ed.D.
