Episode 585: Jim Kwik: Build These Brain Skills Before AI Makes Them Weaker

**Jim Kwik** (0:01)
Hi, guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle.

**Jen Cohen** (0:04)
Crush it.
Welcome to Habits and Hustle, where I sit down with the world's biggest thinkers, entrepreneurs, athletes and experts to uncover the habits, strategies and mindsets that actually move the needle in your health, happiness and success. And today I'm sitting down with Jim Kwik, a brain performance expert, bestselling author and leading voice on memory, focus, learning and human intelligence. We talk about AI and whether it's weakening our thinking, why human intelligence is becoming a key advantage, how your morning shapes your focus, and how to build confidence through action. We also cover dopamine, multitasking, self-talk, memory, and how to train your brain instead of outsourcing it to technology. This conversation is packed with practical ways to stay mentally sharp, make better decisions, learn faster, and become more intentional about where you put your time and energy. Jim gives you simple strategies you can start using right away to perform better, adapt faster, and stay deeply human in a world that keeps getting more automated. So now, let's dive in.
All right, you guys, welcome to another episode of Habits and Hustle. And this one, I got a good one for you today. This one you're gonna really like because not only is this guest just, he has a plethora of information, but he gives you actionable things that you can apply to your life. That can help you optimize your human performance, your human intelligence, and all the things. So this is a treat. We have Jim Kwik today on the podcast. So thank you, Jim, for being here.

**Jim Kwik** (1:48)
Oh, this is good. I've been looking forward to this conversation.

**Jen Cohen** (1:50)
Oh, me too. Listen, Jim has been, I have to say, Jim has been here before in that episode that we did back a few years back, did very well.

**Jim Kwik** (1:57)
People loved it.

**Jen Cohen** (1:59)
So like I said, this is like a big treat to have you back for round two.

**Jim Kwik** (2:02)
Congratulations on the show.

**Jen Cohen** (2:04)
Thank you.

**Jim Kwik** (2:04)
You had some amazing guests.

**Jen Cohen** (2:06)
Thank you. You're one of them. You're one of them. First of all, I was saying to you off before we even started to even basically roll, like, what do you call yourself? Like, you're not, you're a brain coach, but you're also a human performance coach. What is your title? Do you have one?

**Jim Kwik** (2:22)
No, I don't. That's a good question. People started calling me a brain coach or brain performance coach. But I guess, I don't know, I'm an entrepreneur and a husband and a father and all of that. But yeah, I mean, I write books and I help people with their brain. I think for an entrepreneur or any individual, your number one wealth building asset is your brain.
And I like to help people optimize that because everything comes from that, your relationships, your business, your bank account, the impact that you have is all there. But not a lot of people are talking about practically how to use it.

**Jen Cohen** (3:00)
Exactly. Then that's like the name of the game in my world, practical. Like how do we actually truly optimize? There's a lot of words out there, there's a lot of noise and things. But how do we actually get our brain to be better, working for us and how do we really optimize it? That's what I love about what you talk about. By the way, Jim has a new book out called Limitless Daily, 366 Keys to Train Your Brain, Master Your Mind and Win Every Day. Just so you guys know, he wrote that book called Limitless that crushed. Now, there's all these iterations that keep on with the times, which is why what I really wanted to talk to you today about, and I'm sure this is on a lot of people's mind, is of course AI and memory, right?
I think this is a big one because I'm using myself even as an example. We all just turn to AI to do everything for us. It writes our emails, or we're kind of like training our brain actually to be weak because we're not using it anymore, I feel.
What do you say about all this stuff?

**Jim Kwik** (4:06)
Yeah, it's called cognitive offloading.
I wrote about that in even Limitless six years ago when it came out, where technology is wonderful, but if we're dependent on it and reliant on it, like one of the things we talk about, the four horsemen of the mental apocalypse, the things that are making us not as intelligent and not as effective in our life is relying on technology and not doing some of the work ourselves, meaning like digital dementia, for example, is where we use technology to remember things for us. Like our phones, remember your to-dos and your schedules and facts and your notes and the phone numbers, right? I mean, how many phone numbers do we know growing up?