The Miracle Mind: How Five Minutes Each Morning Can Rewire Your Brain—and Your Life

**Hal Elrod** (0:02)
Hello, and welcome to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast, the show that empowers you to wake up to your full potential and achieve your biggest goals and dreams. I am your host, Hal Elrod, and I invite you to join us each week as we share actionable strategies to take your life to the next level, as well as interview world-class experts and entrepreneurs who have achieved extraordinary goals themselves, and we ask them to give you a peek behind the curtain and teach you exactly what you need to do to do the same. Ready? Here we go.
Most people know the quality of your morning influences the quality of your day, but what if it does something more profound? What if it actually shapes the structure of your brain and enables you to create the life that you want? My guest today is Jim Kwik. He is a world renowned expert on the brain and optimizing your cognitive function. I've learned a ton from Jim's first book, Limitless. There's a new book coming out called Limitless Daily. And today we're talking about, I call it the Miracle Mind, just because it's on brand for me. But it's really just about how do you set yourself up so that every day, your brain becomes better than it was the day before. That's what Jim's new book, Limitless Daily does. It's five minutes a day to start your morning, to put your mind in the optimal state so that you can show up at your best for those you love, those you lead. It's essentially the Miracle Morning, but with neuroscience applied to it so that it's focused on optimizing your brain function. Jim is one of my good friends, and I think you're going to love this conversation.
Jim, it's good to see you again.

**Jim Kwik** (1:45)
Hal, that we've been kind of bumping into each other.

**Hal Elrod** (1:49)
I mean that in the most literal sense, because a month ago, we were both in Greece together, speaking at the Health Optimization Summit.
Last week, we were literally in Estonia together, speaking at Mindvalley U. Now we're in Nashville, attending a mastermind together. I mean, I don't think there's any other two people that were at all three of those events together, right?

**Jim Kwik** (2:08)
No, it's meant to be.

**Hal Elrod** (2:10)
It is meant to be, man. I'm excited for this. So here's where I want to start. I'm reading your new book, Limitless Daily, right now. I was already a huge fan of your book, Limitless. In fact, I can't believe this is the first time I'm having it on the podcast, because that book was transformative for my memory, my cognitive function, my ability to just strategize in my life and really be better in every area.
I know that both of us believe that mornings matter.
That's my life's work, sharing how to win the morning. You've spent over three decades studying the brain. From a neuroscience perspective, why are the first few minutes after we wake up so crucial?

**Jim Kwik** (2:45)
So this time, the term is called sleep inertia. Sleep inertia is the time where you're transitioning from a sleep state to a waking state. So a certain part of your brain come on line. Your awareness comes on line. Your alertness comes on line. Your attention is coming on line.
And at the time, your working memory, which is a very short-term memory, that cup is empty. So you haven't filled it up with all kinds of other stuff. So what happens, what the science is showing, what's in the research for Limitless Daily is that the mental inputs you put in during that time period has a disproportionate effect on the rest of your day. Isn't that interesting?

**Hal Elrod** (3:24)
Yeah. You're speaking my language. Yeah.

**Jim Kwik** (3:26)
Specifically in three areas.

**Hal Elrod** (3:27)
Okay.

**Jim Kwik** (3:28)
What you input during that sleep inertia time when you first wake up in the morning has a disproportionate effect on three things. Your focus, like it's going to highly influence what you're trying to focus on. And we know that's going to determine a lot of your day, your piece, your productivity, your performance, probably your profitability also. The second thing, your feelings, your emotional state. Yeah. And how you feel have a disproportionate effect. And then the third thing is how you frame things.
So like how you frame situations, you frame difficulties. Is it a crisis? Is this a problem or a puzzle? Is this an opportunity? And so on. And so now think about what most people feed. And you talk about this. I mean, what do most people feed that precious window that they should be standing guard of?