Speaker 1 0:00
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast, where Dr. Steven Gundry shares his groundbreaking research from over 25 years of treating patients with diet and lifestyle changes alone. Dr. Gundry and other wellness experts offer inspiring stories, the latest scientific advancements and practical tips to empower you to take control of your health and live a long happy life.
Dr Gundry 0:23
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. Well, you probably heard the saying, we only use a fraction of our brain’s potential. And it’s true but how exactly can we access these hidden corners of our minds? Today I’m welcoming back Jim quick, who has dedicated years to exploring this very idea and stands as living testimony to its validity. Once dubbed the boy with the broken brain, Jim has evolved into the go to brain coach for Hollywood’s elite billionaire CEOs and even global institutions. He’s also the author of The Best Seller limitless now in its extended version, set to reshape our understanding of cognition. In today’s chat we’ll dive into your unique brain animal code and why do you hear what mine is says about your learning style how never draw a blank on a name again, and the top foods to boost your brain power. We’ll be right back. You’re not going to miss this one. If you saw our last episode three years ago, he’s back. If you’ve listened to this podcast long enough, you know how much I love to hike and anything that helps me hike longer and better is also something I’m keen on. That’s why I personally take timeline nutritions might appear made of your lithium a might appear is a post biotic with clinical studies showing it helps with muscle strength and recovery. And since I’ve been taking it my hiking game has improved No kidding. I’m much more agile and my balance has improved as a post biotic might appear can help you not only improve your muscle strength, but also your gut health. Give yourself the gift of longevity improved physical activity and boosted gut health timeline nutrition.com Get 10% off your first order might appear. Go to time line nutrition.com and use code Gundry. Tis the season of togetherness with loved ones. However, there can be a lot of unwanted guests joining your gatherings to I’m talking about the ones you can’t see, like party crashing harmful bacteria, viruses and pollutants in the air. According to the EPA indoor air can be surprisingly two to five times more polluted than the great outdoors and in some cases a staggering 100 times more. With 90% of our time spent indoors especially in the winter, the air we breathe deserves a holiday upgrade. But never fair. I’ve got the perfect gift to clean up your air. Air Purifiers by air doctor. They clean the air the most like no other purifier, and they’re quiet for Black Friday air doctor is offering a limited time exclusive deal to our podcast listeners with promo code Gundry 23 You can save up to $350 off Purifiers, 20% off filters and get a free three year extended warranty on any purifiers in your cart, head to air Doctor pro.com and shop using the promo code Gundry 23. Why you felt compelled to update this book?
Speaker 2 4:03
Well, I would say the world has changed, obviously the past few years. And so this is a book to really prepare you to not only survive, but thrive in post pandemic AI world. So the external world has changed and then my personal world has changed also as well. You know, I’m in my 50s now and we had our first child and those kinds of life conditions make you want to reflect and it’s really deepened my commitment and my conviction to help the next generation especially to have a better brain so they could handle the onslaught of information overload, digital distraction, digital dementia, digital depression and so much more.
Dr Gundry 4:55
Since you brought up having a first child, how did your Brain deal with having sleepless nights, maybe for the first time in a while, maybe you can help our listeners through that. Yeah,
Speaker 2 5:11
absolutely. There’s a big chapter in the new book on, on Sleep, sleep is one of the most important things we can do for our brain, people think about when they get a bad night’s sleep, whether they have a newborn or or not, your brain doesn’t really work the same way, right? How’s your ability to think? How’s your ability to solve problems? How’s your mental energy to endure tough tasks? How’s your memory, your focus, concentration, all that slips? And so? Yes, we talk about it’s been it’s been an interesting, especially the past few months, with the baby teething and up all night. And it’s been it’s been a process, it really forces me to double down on what we teach. Because when we’re talking about performance and productivity, especially the mental side of it, it’s critical, we get adequate recovery. And so her brains not meant to go all in full force 24/7. We need those periodic brain breaks throughout the day. And certainly getting good. Seven to nine hours of sleep, especially the quality of the deep sleep and the REM sleep is so very vital. So we can definitely talk about some of my quick tips to optimize your sleep as well. Maybe this
Dr Gundry 6:22
is actually a good place to start. Since you brought it up. All of us talk about it, all of us write about it. And yet, whenever people are writing and on Instagram or YouTube, they go Oh, yeah, you know, it’s fine for you to say you need 789 hours of sleep. But come on, be realistic, that’s, that’s impossible. You know, I’ll sleep when I die. I’m a entrepreneur. And if I get four hours of sleep, it’s a great day. And I’m, I’m at my sharpest when I am only getting five hours asleep. What’s a you?
Speaker 2 6:59
So I would say that we probably underestimate those individuals probably underestimate, and when it comes to our productivity and our performance, even our profitability, and certainly our peace of mind, the importance of sleep, I would say that life conditions are tough, right? They’re global events. There’s a lot of fear that’s out there that keeps people ruminating throughout the night. And it keeps them from falling asleep staying asleep also, as well. Obviously, people are more addicted to their devices now more than ever, and that could all the context switching on our phones at night and the light that comes from our screens, all that adds to the ongoing challenges and the onslaught for us to get restorative rest to be able to bounce back. And not only bounce back, how do you bounce forward. And so there are simple things people could do, I always like to, you know, my last name really is quick, I didn’t change it to do what I do. So we offer a lot of quick tips in our book, especially the new one on how to improve your focus your memory, your ability to read faster, to be able to lead better also as well, and create momentum in your life. But sleep is definitely one of those cores. You know, it’s it’s right up there, along with exercise and diet and social connections, some of my favorite things to do for sleep. And I’m curious for you also as well, we’ve had you on our podcast, and looked at the conversation for me, I noticed what moves the lever is. Sunlight first thing in the morning is is really important. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time going outside if it’s possible. I know the with our windows, it could keep some of the spectrum of light out. But the reason why sunlight first thing in the morning is so important and it helps you to reset your circadian rhythms, which is important first thing in the morning to get a good night’s rest. For me I’m very sensitive to caffeine. So I can’t have caffeine in my system has maybe 12 2pm Max could stay in your system eight to 10 plus hours. And so I want to be conscious of that probably the biggest needle movers in addition to light first thing in the morning, everybody has an alarm to wake up simple thing they could do is set an alarm to go to sleep your nervous system loves that kind of regulation, having staying on a structured schedule even on the weekends and nobody gets this perfect the goal is not perfection. But you know some people are so have so much anxiety about what they eat or lighting and everything and it kind of negates some of the benefit of of eating those good foods or doing some of the things that are good for you. Because that chronic stress is is a challenge. Also chronic stress has been shown to shrink the human brain if we’re in fight or flight all the time. It also holds us hostage from kind of keeps us in our survival brain and doesn’t allow us access easily to our executive functioning to our critical thinking to our ability to solve problems. So setting an alarm is very something simple you could do to be able to do Now it’s time to phase in that parasympathetic, rest and digest, turning off your devices an hour before sleep, because again, our brains really didn’t evolve to have that kind of stimulus where we have the access to the world’s information, right? This close to, to our brain. I would also say that two things that could make a big difference, if you think about hunter gatherers, they would know that it would be time to go to sleep, because the environment would tell them, so there would be a drop into environmental factors in temperature and in light. So again, this is common sense, but it’s not common practice. So cooler, the better now where it’s so cold, you’re shivering, because that’d be very distracting and make it more difficult to sleep. And it’s robbing light. And so getting off our devices, because if it’s modern conveniences, Dr. Gundry, you know, it doesn’t have to get colder, it doesn’t have to get darker, right, we have all these, you know, modern technologies that allow for it. So we have to make a conscious choice to do these things and not be mindless about it. Something simple like taking a warm bath, or a sauna or a warm shower, when you get out of it. And at night, your core body temperature is going to drop introduced a signal to produce melatonin, your natural relaxation tool, and especially if you take a warm bath with like magnesium, because you could absorb that magnesium transdermally, which helps you to be able to relax at night also, as well, besides a colder room, a darker room also as well. So some people use the glasses to block out some of the lighting, or they use red bulbs. You know, for us, the big thing is not being on the phone, because again, not only for the light, because we trick our minds into thinking is still daylight, but also because the contents on our phones can be very aggravating and stimulating, especially with with the news that’s going on in today.
Dr Gundry 11:52
Yeah, those are all great points I recommend to people in my book, one of the easiest things to do that you just brought up is to take warm hot bath right before bedtime. And you’re right, put some Epsom salts in the bath water. Magnesium is is a remarkable sleep aid and dropping core temperature. We don’t go to sleep until our body temperature drops. And that’s just a great trick. And people go oh, you know, I don’t have time for a bath. Or that’s lazy. And you know, I should be on my phone. Another half hour, but you’re right setting a time to go to bed. I keep telling people that get a dog. Because dogs will will keep you on a timetable. Our dogs literally signal Okay, it’s time to go to bed. They all they sit there and stare at you about 830 at night gone. Excuse me, it’s time. And of course then in our household, they’re staring at us at five o’clock in the morning jumping on our chest to get us up. So dogs are great for because that’s how it’s supposed to work. And they just follow your dogs. Lee yeah,
Speaker 2 13:07
there’s a lot of wisdom. We have two dogs ourself and so a lot of organic, natural wisdom and animals for sure. Right?
Dr Gundry 13:14
And the dog makes you go out and face sunlight early in the morning, whether you want to or not. So it’s just it’s a win win for sleep. Absolutely. I have a lot of patience, since you brought up the word ruminate that, for probably obvious reasons, we do a lot more ruminating. And then probably our parents did or our grandparents did. Is there a solution to this? Come on? You’re the brain expert. How do you stop this constant talk in your brain,
Speaker 2 13:49
there are a number of tools that are quick and easy and even can be enjoyable. And we get started with small simple steps, sometimes making big steps. Maybe it’s challenging for a lot of people. But I think little by little a little can become a whole lot. For my day. It’s interesting, I plan my day. And it’s not always perfect. But I’ll give you the principle and people could see what I do. And I’m not saying do exactly what I do but understand the thinking behind it. And because behind every principle is a promise and for this is going to be greater productivity, performance and peace of mind. So when I wake up and I’ll go to the rumination part, just to set context for my day, I really focus on three or four C’s. And I like to obliterate a lot because it makes it very memorable and sticky for the listeners who happen to be right now driving or working out and they can’t take notes. Even though we could turn this into a little bit of a masterclass on brain optimization. The first C in the morning I really focus on creativity, meaning I want to pull information out of my brain because that works really best for me. I don’t want to put input in so that’s why I don’t touch my phone first thing in the morning you and I talked about it. The previous episode, that I have a Facebook video that has 37 million views just saying don’t touch your phone, the first 30 minutes of the day because it rewires your brain for distraction rewires your brain for reaction. And it’s really hard to have a really good day if you can really manage that first hour of the day. But it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Because the challenge with the brain is when we task switch when we think we’re multitasking, but we’re task switching and we go from one thing to another, we light up a different network in our brain, the different cognitive web, and the switch, it takes time. And it uses up a lot of brain glucose uses up a lot of energy. So people will feel that crash throughout the day. Part of it is because of just how we’re managing our behaviors throughout the day, I’ll give you an example. In the morning, I want to be more creative, I’m not looking for input, I’m looking for output. And for me, it comes in the form of that’s when I design podcasts, that’s when I write, I put together curriculum for programs, I work on the strategy of our business, I’m creating the second phase, usually, around lunchtime in the afternoon. I’m consuming, right. So we’re creating, I’m pulling out of my brain consuming, I’m putting in the input. And what am I consuming, I’m listening to podcasts, such as yourselves, I’m reading, I’m doing my research, checking in with the team consuming and doing a little communicating. The communicating, I tried to also task together and I bucket it together. So while my brain doesn’t have to switch different tasks, that’s usually I do most of my communication of when I go on walks, even if it’s on a zoom, carry my phone, and I’ll go for a walk and I’ll get my stepson, and I try to batch all my communication around the same time. And so that would be the third C so I wake up I create later in the afternoon I consume at some point in between are part of those days, I’m also communicating. And then finally the fourth which which goes back to rumination I want to clear my brain. Right. And so think about it. And then morning, I am creating pulling out later on, I’m consuming some point I’m communicating batched, where my brain is connected with other people’s brains. And at the night time, I want to clear my brain. And how do I do that reduce rumination, those constant thoughts are the worries, things like yoga nidra is is very helpful is a certain breathing, maybe with a mantra, something simple. And none of these things take any money. And it doesn’t take a lot of time either as well. Part of How I clear my brain also is just doing some foam rolling before bed because it gets me into my body. And again, helps support him getting that parasympathetic, rest and digest if I do any consuming, and I like to read but I read fiction, because I don’t want to read nonfiction nonfiction is more for my afternoon. Because if I go into nonfiction at nighttime, if I’m reading books on neuroscience, or marketing or something, again into my executive brain, and I don’t really want to go there fiction reading and allows me to relax to go into my imagination, my creativity, fiction reading, by the way, because obviously we teach reading and speed reading is a wonderful way to build your EQ, your emotional intelligence, it’s a wonderful way to to enhance your empathy and perceptual positions through narratives. So I want to really emphasize the importance of fiction reading. Because it kind of fills it up. If I do do that, it’s I’m not thinking about bills, I’m thinking about my responsibilities. Another way of clearing is having a conversation with family members, I’ll talk to my wife and talk to her about what happened that day. And all of a sudden, I’m clearing, right, I’m allowing myself to have a blank slate, I’ll even prepare the next day in my schedule. And I find that when I write things down externally, for my planning for the next day, I don’t have to ruminate about it. I don’t have to think about it. In fact, for rumination, you can even schedule it, you’re saying hey, even during the day, if you find yourself ruminating, you can say okay, I’m going to worry about this, but I’m going to worry about it at 415 to 430. And then my mind is like okay, now I could just enjoy and focus on the task at hand. And then the last thing I’ll do at night is I will maybe journal and that’s where I get my other any excess thoughts out. I think journaling is a wonderful way to clear your mind to put your thoughts on paper to have introspection, also kind of process the day. Maybe do a little bit of gratitude in a gratitude journal, where it allows me to feel good, because gratitude will put you in that parasympathetic, rest and digest and think about three things that really went well that day. That and you don’t have to wait for a greater life to feel grateful. I think once we start are focusing on what we’re grateful for, we could have a greater life. So create, communicate, consume, and then clear.
Dr Gundry 20:08
Alright, you said something that my wife and I were talking about this morning. She says, oh, you know, who’s your podcast with today? So I’m having Jim quick back on. She said, Jim, quick. I know that night when I said, Yeah, you know, the speed reading guy. And she said, Oh, yeah, of course. And I said, I’m going to learn how to speed read today. And she said, Now why would anybody want to speed read, because I love reading my novels. And she had just kind of sat down her novel that she was reading this morning. And I want to enjoy I want to immerse myself in those characters. And I don’t want to speed my way through it. So I thought that was an interesting take. Tell me about, can I speed read nonfiction and then enjoy fiction? Or why do you think
Speaker 2 20:53
accelerating your learning be able to read faster, I’m not talking about frantic fast. And that’s the difference. People think that? Well, traditional speed reading is more skimming, scanning words, getting the gist of what you read. We train a lot of financial advisors, attorneys, medical doctors, and you don’t want your medical doctor to get the gist of what she’s reading. Right? Right. It’s very important. So you don’t read any faster than you could understand the challenges a lot of people actually read slower. And because they read slower than what’s possible, their focus goes elsewhere, meaning your brain is this incredible supercomputer. And when you feed your brain, one word at a time, metaphorically, we’re starving our mind. And if you don’t give your brain the stimulus it needs it’ll seek entertainment elsewhere, in the form of distraction. If anyone anyone’s ever found themselves, like when I started to talk that slow, and I’m from New York, so it’s hard to talk that slow, right? People’s minds would naturally go somewhere else, your mind would wander, you get easily distracted, you start thinking about other things, some people would even fall asleep, if the if someone was talking that slow to them. But Aren’t those the same symptoms of a lot of people with their reading, they get easily distracted, their mind wanders, sometimes they fall asleep. And it’s similar to let’s use the analogy of driving, if you’re driving a car, just around your neighborhood, you’re going pretty slow, you’re not really focused on the act of driving, some people will actually arrive where they arrive and not even remember the trip there. Because they’re drinking their coffee, they’re texting, even though they know they shouldn’t. They’re thinking about the dry cleaning, you can do five things when you’re going slow. But if you’re going more quickly, you’re not focused on anything other than what’s in front of you. Like a racecar driver, there’s focus on what’s in front of them and the act of driving. And that’s a myth. When we talk about certain lies to learning that you have to read slowly to understand it. In fact, we have the largest online academy for accelerated learning, we have students in every country in the world 195 nations. So we have a lot of data, we find that those who actually read faster actually, because we test people, every single week in our courses, they actually understand more, because they’re more focused. So the speed gives you the focus, the focus gives you the comprehension, which gives you the retention. And so one simple thing that everyone could do. I mean, this is a tip, it’s not a training, but simply something simple that would help their speed, focus. And understanding would be using a visual pacer when you read, meaning if you just underline the words, using your finger on a screen or on me reading a book, I prefer reading physical books, I don’t know what your audience prefers, maybe they could put that on social media, and let us know and then tag us in and when they when they post, but you’re not touching the screen or not touching the book, I’m not looking for another excuse to be on a screen. So that’s why I like to read, you know, physical books, maybe I’m just old school in that way. But it allows you to improve your reading speed upwards of 25 to 50%. Immediately, with very, very little practice, if any, what I am saying is don’t believe everything I’m saying test it because ultimately the person who’s listening right now they are the expert of themselves. So simple test everyone could do because I like to make it very active. Because I feel like podcasts are great. But all the podcasts, books, courses, none of it works unless we put into action also we work right. And so test it pick up a book, pick up where you left off, put a little mark in the margin with a pen or pencil. Read for 60 seconds time and on your phone. And then when you’re done, put a mark in the margin read how you normally read read and then pick up where you left off. Set your timer for 60 seconds, and then try using a visual pacer and it could be your finger a pen, a highlighter mouse on a computer, just something that gives you focus and then can count the number of lines you read in 60 seconds that number for most people, a person 90% Without any other practice will be 25 to 50% Lift, some people will double their reading speed doing that, because the reason why is your your eyes are attracted to motion. If something ran across your room, you wouldn’t no longer look at the camera lens, you would look at what moves because as a hunter gatherer that’s survival. If you’re a hunter gatherer and you’re in a bush, and you’re hunting lunch, like a rabbit, or a carrot, depending on your diet. If the bush next to you moves, you have to look at what moves because number one, that could be lunch, or number two, you could be lunch, right? So when your fingers underlining the words, your eyes are attracted to the movement, and you don’t do something called regression. Regression is a bad habit that most of us picked up back in elementary school where we unconsciously reread words. I mean, some people have had the experience of rereading whole lines by accident, just because their eyes aren’t trained, right. And so just underlining the words will give you more focus. And that focus will give you a better understanding, and you’ll have greater speed. And just saving 50% on your reading speed is like, what, 20 minutes per hour. And most people read more than three hours a day. And that alone will save you an hour a day, one hour a day over the course of a year is what 365 hours, right? That’s how many 40 hour work weeks, nine to months of productivity, you get back doing something ubiquitous, like reading. And so I would say you when you’re reading, you never read any faster, you’re not going to go push your finger any faster than you can understand. So you’re not losing comprehension. If anything, you’re gaining it because it’s helping you to focus
Dr Gundry 26:49
by our listeners probably going well, yeah. Okay, you’re reading 25% faster. But are you really comprehending that much faster? Or are you just reading faster, but it’s not sinking? In? Yeah,
Speaker 2 27:03
the comprehension is there, because the focus is there. That’s why because your eyes are helping pull you through and can because if you go too slow, without your finger, which most people do, then their mind distracts themselves, because they’re not getting the stimulus that you’re super computer could really handle. And so we know that people could very easily improve their reading speed double, on average for our 21 day course that many some of your listeners may be part of we tripled reading speed with better comprehension. Absolutely. It’s not just speed reading, it’s smart reading. Because we also give people tactics for remembering what they read, because starting as a memory coach, I feel like it doesn’t make sense to read something if you don’t understand and retain what you read.
Dr Gundry 27:49
Good point, indeed. Well, since you mentioned that, how do we remember what we read any any tricks to that? Of course.
Speaker 2 28:00
So for four and a half years, I read one book a day, for four and a half years, just because I think readers are leaders, people that follow me on social media, and they see if they happen to see pictures with me with Oprah, or Elon, or whoever. I could tell you, people always ask how did you connect? Or how did you bond? We bonded over books, right? You Read to Succeed, leaders or readers, if somebody has decades of experience, like you do. And you put them into books, which you did. And somebody can sit down and a few days and read that book, they can download decades in a days. That’s the biggest advantage in today’s society. Because the faster you could learn, the faster you could earn. Because knowledge today is not only power, knowledge is profit. Right? When you have more information and more expertise, you can make better decisions. And our life is a sum total of all the decisions we’ve made. But some people while there’s a gap between those who have and those who have not. Clearly, there’s also a gap between those who know something and those who don’t know those things. And so reading is also an incredible, not just the best way to upgrade your software, your mental software, but it’s also an incredible mental exercise. When people are talking about brain games and apps, I can tell you that reading is to your mind with exercises to your body. It’s one of the best forms of mental exercise to get novelty to create new learnings, insights and wisdom from from experts like yourself. And so yeah, I would say one of the best ways to improve your memory of what you read is not only using your finger because that will help you with your focus and understanding. The second thing I would say is asking better questions and ask more questions. You know, we have part of our brain called the reticular activating system, our A S and here’s the backstory Our brains are primarily a deletion device. We’re trying to keep information out. If we let everything in we would, there would be so much anxiety and so much overload, right? There’s billions of stimulus we could focus on. So what do we decide to let in part of it? That gateway is the RAS, something that’s programmed in us from a child is like our name. That’s why name is a sweetest sound to person’s ears. Because when you hear your name, you have to pay attention, because we are programmed like that, right? Other things that activate our RAs are things that are important to us, and especially the questions that we ask because when we ask a new question, we get new answers. And think about questions as a spotlight. When we ask a question, we’ve we put a spotlight towards answers. So for example, long time ago, my younger sister would send me postcards and emails have a very specific breed of dog. It was a pug doc, right? And she kept on sending me these images. And my question became, why does she keep sending me these images? And then I realized that she had a birthday coming up. And she’s a good marketer, right? She was seeding that gift. And the funny thing happened, I started seeing that pug dogs everywhere in my neighborhood, no exaggeration, I would be at the supermarket checking out and the person in front of me will be holding a pug dog. I’d be jogging in my neighborhood, and, and a guy would be walking six pug dogs. And my question for the listeners is, did those pug dogs just teleport into my neighborhood? No, of course not. They were always there. But I was deleting it. Because it was not important to me. Once I started asking questions, I started to see it. And so same thing in life. When we ask questions, I have a theory called dominant question theory where we have 60,000 thoughts a day. And a lot of those thoughts come in the form of questions. And there’s certain questions we asked more than any other question. And that question determines what we shine a spotlight on. And so when if you have more questions when you read about the material, all the sudden, most people that read a page in a book, you get to the end, and then forget what they just read. Have you ever done that you read a page in the book at the end and just forgotten? Absolutely. You go back and you reread it if you still don’t know what Judas read. But if you have questions about the content, when you’re reading, you’re saying, oh, there’s a pug dog. There’s a pug dog. There’s another pug dog, you’re getting those kinds of answers. Even when we teach a lot of students programs. And we have a Student Success program for high school students and college students. One of them is like when you’re taking a standardized test, like reading comprehension, remember those and then he had to read all these paragraphs and at the end, they had the questions. But a simple test taking technique is read the questions first. And then you’re you’ve charged your RAS your reticular activating system so that when you’re reading, you’re like, there’s an answer. There’s the answer. You’re attracting it like a magnet, as opposed to reading pages and then getting to the end and seeing the question saying, Oh, I didn’t what was important, right. So I would say for greater speed, use your finger while you read. For greater comprehension, ask more questions because questions are the answer.
Dr Gundry 33:15
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Speaker 2 37:52
I think that our brains aren’t meant to be active in the same kind of critical thinking logical executive functioning all the time. I think it’s important to stimulate different parts of our brains, just like when we use different parts of our body, right to challenge yourself in new ways. But also again, having using that time to recover to relax, some people binge watch a show or some people will do something else. And it’s again, who am I to say where to put people’s focus. It’s really what the outcome is. But I feel like it’s very important every once in a while to have a pitstop to detach from your work, or the things that we spend most time on, to be able to go in that kind of default space where we could just enjoy something and let our minds wander. For me, reading doesn’t do that so much because it’s an active process for me, as opposed to television, which is more passive. For me. I think reading nonfiction you learn through information and reading fiction we learn through imagination. And I think that’s equally important. Right? Einstein said Imagination is more powerful than knowledge. So to be able to use our imagination to be able to see what’s going on and feel adequate fiction reading story reading, that’s absolutely valuable. But just like anything, if you’re doing too much of it, you need to have some kind of harmony depending on what your outcome is. But of course, I enjoy reading fiction reading, I enjoy a good show here and there or going to a comedy club. But it’s because it’s important to stimulate different parts of ourselves and also just to relax. Sometimes we have to disconnect to reconnect.
Dr Gundry 39:32
So I’m sure everybody listening wants to know. Come on. Have you ever binge watched a series on Netflix or something like that? And if so, what What’s your most recent one?
Speaker 2 39:46
I enjoy a number of things. I mean, our family watches a bunch of documentaries, certain shows. Even like friends just like these are old old shows, but it for some reason. It just helps me just feel good. And it allows me to relax I don’t have to pay a lot of attention to it. Recent shows I enjoyed billions just wrapped up. I do a lot in that industry. So it’s interesting to see another perspective even though it’s coming from from Hollywood, they just wrapped up their season series finale. Thoughtful quiet shows I enjoy watching shows when I’m active, I use movies and television shows to learn. So I, if I binge watch something, it’s something like elementary, which is modern day Sherlock Holmes and Watson story that takes place in New York City. And I learned though also so not only is it passive, I go in, and I see his process, because in there, he uses mind palaces, which we teach. In that process. He goes into Alpha Theta states, and I’m learning and then I’m, you know, the basis of his process. And I’m all about taking genius, because I believe genius leaves clues and unpacking it, and then teaching it and helping people to adopt that genius. He has a process for observation and deduction. It sounds kind of heady. But it makes it fun for me. So I could enjoy the show itself. And I keep myself also when I choose to be intellectually stimulated. So it’s not just a passive experience, I make it more active.
Dr Gundry 41:19
I hate to admit it, my wife and I finally finish watching succession last week, and I would have thought you’d be a succession sort of guy. I did. Finish
Speaker 2 41:29
succession also as well to the same spirits as billions also, as well. It was a good show, I was okay with the ending. Almost,
Dr Gundry 41:38
I want to move on to a new part of your expanded edition, the brain animal code. Oh, wow. And I was forced to take your test. So give me the whole concept of brain animal code. So
Speaker 2 41:54
the new book it people ask why we did this new book. And I say as before that the world has changed post pandemic AI. And I realized, you know, like, there’s personalized medicine based on our genetics, and there’s personalized nutrition based on things like our microbiome. Well, we offer personalized learning based on people’s cognitive type. And so the inspiration for this assessment, and we’re making it free for your listeners, they could go to my brain animal.com. My brain animal.com Is I realized people love taking quizzes, right? They want to know what Game of Thrones character they are, or what Harry Potter school that they would best fit in. It’s a four minute only takes four minutes is multiple choice. But it helps you to know more about yourself. There’s a scene in Matrix where Neo goes to see the Oracle for the first time if we’re talking about binge watching certain movies. That was one of my favorites matrix. Me too. Yes, absolutely. When Neil walks into the kitchen of the Oracle, there’s a sign above the door that I noticed, that says, Know thyself. And I think a big part of just being happy and fulfilled is having the curiosity to know yourself. And then the other half of it is having the courage to be yourself, because a lot of people know themselves. That’s why they go to therapy, or they journal or they meditate or they do certain things. But also it takes courage to be that person in a world full of other people’s expectations and opinions and those kinds of things and judgments and fear making mistakes. But the knowing the self is so important. And I think knowing your brain animal, I don’t think I know, could support people in really tapping into their real performance and potential. And so this assessment came about because I’ve been using him with clients on one on one. And this is the first time in this new book that we make it available to the general public, and it gives you such an advantage and here’s why. I created this assessment based on various sciences and psychologies things like personality types, like Myers Briggs and left brain, right brain dominance theory, learning styles visual auditory, kinesthetic, multiple intelligence theory out of Harvard University. And so it was a meld and a synergy where I realized after 32 years as a brain coach, it’s not how smart you are. It’s actually how are you smart. I know smarter kids are it’s how are they smarter than how smart your team is? It’s actually how are they smart. And this assessment was show you your brain animal, which is your cognitive type. So here it is. Imagine the word code co D. This is your brain code. It’s an acronym like simple mnemonic. The C and code stands for the animal is the cheetah. The defining trait of a cheetah is they implement, they apply they act. So cheetahs are very intuitive. They thrive in fast paced environments because they adapt very quickly, right. They learn so that they can apply the Oh Oh, encode are your owls and your owls. The defining trait is they’re very logical, right? They’re very rational. And so they like to research they like to study, they love facts and figures and data. Now even just talking about two animals, you would notice that these two animals would communicate different, these two animals would invest different, or by different, they would exercise a little bit different, right, they’d be influenced differently also, as well, they would lead a team differently. The D, in code is like yourself is a dolphin, and the dolphin are your creative visionaries. They have strong problem solving skills, they have exceptional pattern recognition. And often they can see a future that other people can’t see it, right, a visionary like Disney, or JK Rowling’s who wrote the Harry Potter series. And finally, the last animal, the E and code are your elephants. And your elephants are defined by the trait of empathy, high levels of empathy, and EQ. They love to bring people together, right? They love their team players also as well, if they’re going to learn or they’re going to exercise they love doing doing group classes or creating, you know, a payment part of a book club, and so on. So these are your four animals. And when people take the quiz, they get a personalized report, there’s nothing to buy, they get a personalized report on based on your animal. This is how you could read better based on your animal. This is how you can remember names based on your animal. This is how you could communicate with other animals differently. And so I feel like it Knowledge is power than this is knowing your animal is like a superpower. You get to know yourself and know the people around you. And it what it does is it takes the judgment away, it’s like you get to write with your dominant hand. Right? If I asked everybody right now to write their first and last name with their dominant hand, they would do it quick, the quality would be pretty good, right? It’d be very comfortable. But I’ve asked you to put the pen in your opposite hand, your non dominant hand, and right below it your first and last name, it probably would take longer, it probably the quality wouldn’t be as good, it probably feel uncomfortable. And when people are trying to learn something outside of their brain animal, it’s like learning something with their non dominant hand, it takes longer, it feels uncomfortable and the quality, the fidelity is not quite as good. And so sometimes when we’re interested in a subject, sometimes the way you prefer to learn your brain animal is different than the teachers brain animal, and you miss each other. It’s like two ships in the night you pass each other without even recognize and the other ones there and you don’t have that connection. And so it’s interesting once you understand your specific brain, animal, how much power it gives you in, in your career at school in your life.
Dr Gundry 47:55
So what you’re saying is if you reward me with a fish for a trick that I do, I’ll do very well or nothing
Speaker 2 48:02
like that. But understanding that you are very creative, who you know, and you and you could visualize in the power of your imagination, even animals, they communicate differently. I mean, even even you need to think about it, their jobs would be different, like an owl would be a logical thinker. You they would fall like we had our entire team. A few dozen people take the assessment, obviously, it’s interesting 100% of our customer service team are elephants, why they have high levels of empathy. There are community builders, they’re very compassionate. So they want to serve right? There are students because this their success. Our CFO is an owl. You know, they love data, and they love the numbers, right? Our co leader, our team, my business partner of 17 years, she’s a dolphin, because she has a vision of affecting, you know, a billion brains, no brain left behind. And so it’s interesting, you can even hire and manage based on brain type. So your hours are going to be your data analysts, your engineers, your accountants, right, your research scientists, your software developers, your cheetahs are often entrepreneurs, they could be EMTs they could be sales representatives and professional athlete. Your dolphins can be you know amazing writers like yourself, or they can be a marketing specialist or they can be a film director, elephants would really thrive in let’s say human resource manager or social worker or a public a PR specialist a teacher and then you can also see what famous people or even non paid like we I talked about friends right if people are familiar with friends then I would say that Chandler was a cheetah just fast acting on intuition. Just just move doesn’t do a lot of thinking. They Ross Ross Geller was the scientists is an owl very studious a professor. You could go to Monica Monica was the elephant always wanted to host all the parties and be the center of the community. You can go to Phoebe who’s the creative with through song and dance and imagination. So you can see this in everything, you see it in culture, you can see it in the people around you. So I’m interested in people right now. Don’t do it now, don’t take the test, but but text it to a friend, and they’re gonna text you a picture of their animal. And it would explain a lot about their behavior. Yeah, I’ve,
Dr Gundry 50:21
throughout my career, I’ve been accused of flying at 30,000 feet. And you’re a visionary. Yeah, really, whoever met me. So cheese, you’re flying at 30,000 feet? How do you do that? That’s what I do. So I’m glad I’m a dolphin, I guess. But you should be glad you are, whatever this animal is,
Speaker 2 50:45
right. And we are a composite of all these things, right? You’re your secondary, we’re blend. But it’s not like if you’re right handed doesn’t mean you don’t use your left hand. It’s just that happens to be your strength. So it’s a great way of discovering your strengths, and the strengths of other people around you. Before
Dr Gundry 51:00
I let you go, the other big change in this book is AI. And of course AI is on everybody’s mind. And if it isn’t, it should be and it’s even on President Biden’s in mind. Give us your thoughts on this. So
Speaker 2 51:15
the new chapters we add to limitless expanded was really about the science of momentum, we still cover the how to change your mindset, your motivation, all the methods for reading faster, improving your memory and all and your focus and everything. And we added a whole new section on momentum, because that’s what people want in the new year, this escape velocity and knowing your brain type will allow you to have more momentum, because you’re playing to your strengths and you have less friction. Another thing we talked about a whole chapter on nootropics. I’ve never in 30 years talked about brain supplements or nootropics. Things that enhance your your focus, your mood, your mental energy. Another section is on AI. And how does it create momentum? Well, my dominant question in this category was how do you use AI to enhance your AGI, your human intelligence, because I don’t see artificial intelligence as artificial. I see it as augmented intelligence. Right. It’s there to support you like all technology. And so there’s simple things you could do to accelerate your intelligence and your productivity using AI. So let’s say you wanted to learn new subject, I mentioned this word neuroplasticity. And instead of looking it up in the dictionary, you could go into AI and say, explain to me neuroplasticity as if I am eight years old, and see what comes out of it. Right? If you wanted to be able to use things like like we have a podcast to also as well. Sometimes I don’t get the book in time for if they happen to be having a conversation with an author. And I don’t want to read the digital one, as I told you before. And so I’ll go into AI and say summarize this book. And or if I’ve had a guest, I will say propose 10 questions of for Steve for Dr. Gundry that hasn’t been asked before that would be very relevant to our audience of brain health enthusiast, you don’t have to use things verbatim I rarely ever, ever do. But it gives you some kind of foundation for your creativity. Another way of using it, you know, limitless, the largest chapter is on memory improvement because I think having a strong memory nowadays is so essential because what people forgetting I believe to the most costly words are I forgot I forgot to do it, I forgot to bring it up. Or I was gonna say I forgot to go to that meeting, I forgot that conversation. I forgot that person’s name, just 100 on. But when you have a great memory, every area of your life gets better, right? Your relationships, your health, everything. Your income, certainly when you can easily remember facts and figures and sales presentations, client information, product information. But when we talk about the principles and the techniques in the book, you could apply it to AI. So if I wanted to remember a TED talk, I could say hey, build me a Mind Palace, one of the techniques that we teach that we took from 2500 year old methodology from ancient Greece, or I could say, Hey, I’m studying this area of business or brain. And can you mind map this for me and a mind map is a whole brain note taking technique. And it can do that for you also, as well. There’s something called retrieval practice. Remember, I said that the questions are the answer that you could test yourself. So AI could test your reading speed, your reading comprehension, they could also provide you with thoughtful questions to quiz yourself. So memory is three phases, you encode you store your retrieve, so we could help you with that active retrieval, which is a wonderful way to learn also, as well. So really, the AI applications are truly limitless, right? There’s so many different ways to use it, and you don’t have to be afraid of it. Right? They’re just like a tool like at first, the Internet can be overwhelming or social media could be any kind of technology could but once you put a little bit of thought into it, you can even use AI to learn AI. And that’s pretty meta, right? Same thing with your brain like the brain, your brain is the or one organ that named itself, right? Think about that. But AI is a wonderful way to even learn AI for those people who like compare AI to a tree and to see what comes out,
Dr Gundry 55:13
but not to bother anybody. But I hope everybody realizes this entire podcast if you’re seeing this on YouTube, this is actually not Jim quick when I’m talking to it is Jim quicks bot, and you can see how amazing it is now we’re just, we’re just joking. It’s actually him. But that is a bit disconcerting. In the future. Will Will Jim quicks bot be teaching these courses and answering questions, we do
Speaker 2 55:43
have an AI component to all our courses so that we do have a quick bot, when people join our academy that they have access to, and they could ask questions, and we pre loaded it with all their courses. And it’s remarkably remarkably accurate. You go into a bar and say how would Jim quick memorize the periodic table and and it’ll come out with you know, our applications where our techniques and everything so yeah, we we offer that as personalized, you know, inside our core courses. But yeah, soon, you know, CBD, they’ll have like holograms and you know, VR and all this technology. But the most important technologists will remind everybody in this conversation is a technology that’s between your ears, this three pound Oregon, of gray and white matter that really has created all the technology in the world, right? The challenge is we upgrade our technology all the time you get the new iPhone, you get the new apps, you upgrade your elddis things. But when’s the last time we took time to upgrade the most important thing which is our brain?
Speaker 3 56:42
Have you ever heard that story that Napoleon used the Egyptian sphinx for target practice, and shut its nose off? Or maybe you’ve heard that a French astrologer named Nostradamus correctly predicted nearly 500 years of human history? Or maybe someone told you that the legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads and Mississippi. These stories are what I like to call historical myths, great little tales that may or may not have any basis in historical fact. On our fake history, we explore these historical myths and try to determine what’s fact. What’s fiction, and what is such a good story. It simply must be told. If you dig stories about death, obsessed emperors, lost civilizations, desperate sieges, Voodoo black magic, and famous historical figures, you thought you knew that our fake history might just be your new favorite podcast. If you dig it, then subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Dr Gundry 58:11
Now it’s time for the audience question rate, Shelly 2598 on YouTube as watermark markers for a leaky brain? Actually, that’s a great question. We actually use a company called vibrant wellness to actually look at what’s called a neuro Zoomer or a neuro Zoomer plus, where we can actually look at antibodies to the blood brain barrier, you can actually look at antibodies to various components of the brain, glial cells, neurons, specific dopamine receptors, and so on and so forth. But in one of the new chapters of gut check, the old chapter is leaky gut equals leaky brain. And I couldn’t be more emphatic about that if you have a leaky gut, and we decide to test you for leaky brain, I can guarantee you that we will find leaky brain. And that’s actually pretty doggone scary. And I try to make the case that even things that we just perceive as maybe part of getting older, forgetfulness, brain fog, the dreaded mommy brain of having a baby or even having too many kids running around the house. All of these actually correlate very well with the health of your microbiome, the diversity of your microbiome, whether or not you have a leaky gut and you Sadly, I can tell you that these things are all part and parcel of what’s going on in your gut. And it’s being it’s showing showing up in your brain. Actually, just like Jim quick just said, You’ve got to nurture your brain from the gut on up. So that’s a great question. Okay, it’s time for the review of the week from Liz Ray 231. I totally agree with you about olive oil. I’m 73 and had really awful arthritis. My hands were hardly usable. My shoulders weren’t moving, I thought I would end up in a wheelchair, then I found a great olive oil. Where did my arthritis go? I was amazed as my arthritis started to disappear until today, where I only have a small bump on my right index finger. So now I don’t believe it’s just part of aging. I’m living proof. Thanks for all the great hints and tips. Well, thank you, Liz Ray. You know, I’ve been at this a very long time, I get to see what happens with my patients six days a week, when we put them on a regimen for instance, like a really good high quality olive oil. I get to study people in the Mediterranean who use up to a liter of olive oil per week. It’s a lot of olive oil, folks get to look at the data of heart disease being treated with olive oil and multiple studies. And then I like to report what I find. And it you know, I report you decide. So thanks for taking me up on this. And it’s great to hear that it’s working for you. It’s it’s clearly lubricating your joints. That’s it for today. We’ll see you next week because I’m Dr. Gundry. And I’m always looking out for you.
Speaker 1 1:01:58
I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Dr. Gundry podcast. If you did, please share this with family and friends. You never know how one of these health tips can completely transform someone’s life when you take the time to share it with them. There’s also the Dr. Gundry podcast YouTube channel where we have 10s of 1000s of free health insights that can help you and your loved ones live a long vital life. Let’s do this together.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
