Jim Kwik Quotes

It’s not accurate that your memory works like a container, cup, or hard drive in that once it’s full of data no more can fit. It’s more like a muscle in that the more you train it, the stronger it gets and the more you can store.

The De Bono approach to problem-solving is an ingenious and elegantly organized method for getting the most from your thinking. At its core, it is a neatly defined way of looking at an issue from all sides. First, you make sure you’re clear on what you need to address. Then, you determine that you have all the facts in front of you. Next, you make sure you’re dealing with the issue with a positive perspective. Then, you get real about the challenges you’re facing, and allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling about it. After this, you allow yourself to attack the problem from perspectives you might not have considered before, letting your imagination run free. And then you circle back to make sure you’ve addressed what you set out to address during this session.

I will see it when I believe it.

Being aware of how you’re holding yourself back with your self-talk and spending some time to get to the source of these beliefs is extremely liberating, because once you’re aware, you can begin to realize that these aren’t facts about you, but rather opinions. And there’s a very good chance that those opinions are wrong.

a beginner’s mind.” Remember that your mind is like a parachute — it only works when it’s open.

To remember any new piece of information, you must associate it with something you already know.

Reasons that are tied to your purpose, identity, and values will sufficiently motivate you to act, even in the face of all of the daily obstacles that life puts in your way.

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

First you create your habits, and then they create you

When you say you are defined by a particular action, you are essentially priming yourself to identify with and justify a certain behavior.

In an ideal world, being able to get as many perspectives on a topic as possible would be enormously valuable in helping us to form our own opinions. Unfortunately, that’s rarely how it plays out in the real world. Instead, we tend to identify a handful of sources with which we align and then give those sources extreme influence over our thinking and decision-making. In the process, the “muscles” we use to think critically and reason effectively are atrophying. We’re letting technology do the deduction for us. And if technology is forming our deductions, then we are also ceding much of our problem-solving ability — something so important and something we will discuss at length later in this book.

how to get the maximum

KWIK START Go to the notification settings of your phone and turn off all unnecessary and distracting pings and dings. Do this now.

The purpose of my life had always been to free people from concern. . . . How will you serve the world? What do they need that your talent can provide? That’s all you have to figure out. . . . The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is. Everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart, and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart.

The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre noted that, “Life is C between B and D,” meaning that the life we live is the choices we make between the “B” of birth and the “D” of death.