JIM KWIK | How AI Is Making Us Dumber (And, How to Use it Properly)

Your brain is either getting stronger or getting weaker. There is no neutral, gentlemen. Today Jim Kwik https://www.instagram.com/jimkwik/?hl=en breaks down why comfort, convenience, and cognitive offloading to AI are quietly making men mentally soft, and what it actually takes to build what he calls "cognitive reserve" which is the difference between a man who stays sharp, independent, and capable as he ages and one who doesn't. We get into why peace comes from capacity, not comfort, why self-trust is built by keeping promises to yourself instead of anybody else, and Jim's personal framework for using AI to sharpen your thinking instead of replacing it. If you feel like your focus is slipping, your discipline softening, or your identity too wrapped up in a job title that could be taken from you tomorrow, this episode might be the reset. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS 00:00 Shift from Achievement to Fulfillment 03:51 Avoiding Modern Distractions & Media Outrage 06:00 Developing Mental Sovereignty in the Age of Information 08:20 The Danger of Cognitive Surrender to AI 11:35 Comfort Crisis and the Value of Struggle 14:01 Building Human Intelligence Through Challenge 18:44 How Modern Conveniences Weaken Mental Muscles 21:33 Navigating Difficult Conversations & Growth 25:50 Building Self-Trust by Keeping Promises 28:08 Character, Wealth Transfer, and Raising Resilient Kids 31:00 Understanding Cognitive Reserve and Brain Health 35:21 Cognitive Offloading vs. Building Real Intelligence 37:40 The B. U. I. L. D. Framework for Using AI 41:02 Overcoming Childhood Labels and Traumatic Injury 46:44 What AI Can Never Replace in Humans 48:38 The H. U. M. A. N. Framework for Personal Evolution 52:27 Decoupling Your Identity From External Roles 57:08 Standing in the Arena and Overcoming Criticism 01:00:03 Why Adaptation is Critical for Modern Leadership 01:03:51 Limitless Daily: The 5-Minute Morning Mental Upgrade 01:09:00 Protecting Your Morning Attention Window Battle Planners: Pick yours up today! https://store.orderofman.com/products/order-of-man-annual-battle-planner Order Ryan's new book, The Masculinity Manifesto https://www.amazon.com/Masculinity-Manifesto-Establishes-Influence-Credibility/dp/1684513316/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1665048672&sr=8-1. For more information on the Iron Council brotherhood https://orderofman.link/iron-council. Want maximum health, wealth, relationships, and abundance in your life? Sign up for our free course, 30 Days to Battle Ready https://orderofman.link/battle-ready-0

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Men, your brain is either getting stronger or alternatively, it's getting weaker. And the reality is there's just no neutral. Today, Jim Quick breaks down why comfort, convenience, and cognitive offloading to AI are quietly making all of us as men mentally soft. We're also going to be talking about what it actually takes to build what he calls cognitive reserve, which is the difference between a man who stays sharp, independent, sovereign, and capable as he ages and one who doesn't. We get into why peace comes from capacity, not comfort, why self-trust is built by keeping

• 0:40Speaker 00

  promises to yourself instead of anyone else, and also Jim's personal framework for using AI to sharpen your thinking instead of just replacing it. So if you feel like your focus might be slipping, or your discipline is softening, or your identity is too wrapped up in a, in a job title or an occupation that could be taken from you tomorrow, this episode today might be that reset.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, or strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am your host and founder, Ryan Mickler. Right now, I am in Maine, hanging out with my good friends at Origin Maine. And if you want to make sure you check them out, go to Origin USA. And if you train jujitsu, or you just want to support American manufacturing, take a look at what they're up to with their business, but also their movement and their jujitsu. So wish me luck. I have not been training, if I'm being honest, as much as I should be or have committed to. So it'll be good to get out there and get a reset myself and also get my butt handed to me a little bit. Also want to mention another great company, my good friends in Montana at Montana Knife Company.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  They make American knives incredibly crafted by Josh Smith and his team. They are just doing amazing things. I've done a couple of tours up there. I've, I've broken bread with them. I've hunted with these guys. And if you're looking for a high quality knife, one that you can use in the kitchen or in the field, or as an everyday carry, they've got their new EDC, their everyday carry knife. It's a folding knife called the Montana. Make sure to go to montaneknifecompany.com. I really believe that every single man should carry a knife on him. I actually pulled out my knife just the other day to do something. I use it every day. I can't remember what it was. And the person I was with said, whoa, good job on having a knife.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  As if it was a surprise that a man carries a knife with him and is on his person at all times. Go check it out, montaneknifecompany.com. Use the code ORDEROFMAN. All right, guys, let me introduce you to Jim. He's been on the podcast before and he's a phenomenal human being. He's one of the world's leading experts on brain performance, memory, learning, all of the things that I know I could definitely improve upon. He did have a childhood brain injury and one of his schoolteachers actually called him the boy with the broken brain. I just cannot fathom a schoolteacher making a remark like that. But he spent over three decades building tools, models that took him from a struggling

• 3:39Speaker 00

  reader to a trusted advisor for some of the most elite performers in the world. I'm talking about Fortune 500 executives, NFL athletes, Formula One drivers, and so many more. He is the author of the bestselling book called Limitless, which actually outsold Obama's memoir for three straight days on Amazon and has sold millions of copies worldwide. He's got a new book coming out. It's called Limitless Daily. And what that does is distill everything that he's learned into five-minute daily practices that are built to be read in the crucial first moments of the day that you wake up.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  And we talk about that today's podcast. So before you get the phone, before the noise, before the world gets you to write your day off, guys who want to start protecting their focus and rebuilding their mental discipline and just maximize the six inches between our ears, you can grab a copy of that new book at Limitless Daily, where he also put together a lot of bonuses for anyone who orders now. All right, guys, enjoy the episode.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  I think one thing that when you said about how the, the content has changed or evolved is I just think it just has to do with my age a little bit, you know? I think when we're younger, it's like hard charging hustle culture, go out and get yours, dominate the world. And then at 45 years old, I'm like, okay, like, that's cool. Like, that's important, but I also want to enjoy my life. I want to be fulfilled. I want to wake up happy. I want to wrestle with my kids. I want to go up and watch my oldest son play college lacrosse. So I'll hustle, but my hustle has been directed more towards personal fulfillment and towards my children, quite frankly.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  I can see the through line, like, and I was going through, looking at scrolling through some like your content, both on social and podcasts, but it seems like in general, it's not absolute, but you know, going from performance to purpose or achievement to stewardship or winning to more becoming. And, you know, I think, I mean, I think like this dominant question of like, what kind of man is required in this moment in history is, is a big freaking conversation, you know?

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, more so probably than when we started doing this 11 years ago.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. Again, you're one of the early, early ones, like talking about this stuff.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I didn't really realize, I was just trying to be a better friend, husband, father, business owner, and I didn't realize how many guys were like, yeah, I want the same thing.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  How's it changed for you, though? How, how, how have things evolved for you? Because you've been in the game for a long time, too.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm 53. So like, I mean, I'm telling, like fatherhood was the big change, having a son, you know, we have a three and a half year old son and a one and a half year old daughter. So it's been the biggest of a personal evolution. Sure, mentors made a difference and books made a difference. My, you know, into, you know, personal relationships over the years have made a difference. Having an entrepreneur, you know, is a big, you know, leap when the responsibility is on us, you know, the shoulder, you know, a team. And, but, um, yeah, I'm also at the place, Ryan, personally, where I'm losing my voice a little bit because I'm out on the road for four weeks. I just got home, but it's, uh, I don't know anything, I'm less in my mind transaction.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  I just want to go like deeper with people and just, you know, go, I don't need to meet anybody new, but like this, like going deeper with people I, that I just kind of first started out with, or I could grow with, and people are doing good work. And it's, it's, you know, people I can learn from, be inspired by, like, I'm more of that kind of place. But I'm about, not about doing less so much, but I just wanted the things to matter. Like, if it doesn't help me, like, grow, it doesn't help me, like, flow in life, then I just, I just really kind of want to stay away from drama and stuff. Cause there's enough things, you know, that I want to, especially, especially as a father, like my, my dad, you know, was very hardworking, but I didn't get to see him a whole lot growing

• 7:58Speaker 02

  up and, you know, I just, you know, and also I'm starting, like, when my father was my age, 53, I was 29 years old, you know, like, it's just getting a little different phase of, of life.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  So it's so interesting. I mean, when I, let's see, when I turn 53, so that's eight years, my youngest son will be graduating high school. So we're in a different spot with the, with the children for sure. You know, it's funny, Jim, I was talking with, well, somebody had made a post in one of our channels today, and he was talking about how he's got caught up in a, a local, or not, excuse me, not a local, but a national trial. And it's this woman, I can't remember her name right offhand, who, uh, well, she strangled her children and threw herself out a window and ended up paralyzed. And I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with this. And he said he got caught up in the news cycles and paying attention to it.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  And I told him, without, without trying to chastise him, I said, that's very effeminate behavior. You're gossiping, you're getting caught into something that's a social contagion, you're getting wrapped up in things that probably aren't real relevant to you. And when women do it, it's not wrong. That's what I would call feminine behavior. But when men do it, it's effeminate. What men need to do is masculine behavior, which is not antisocial, it's more directional. So we're going to go raise a barn together. We're going to go on a hunt together. We're going to go to a conference and learn something to develop a skillset. Neither are wrong, but when men engage in feminine behavior, creates problems and vice versa.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  And I think that's kind of where a lot of men start to go as they get older. Like, I don't want to get wrapped up in that stuff anymore. I want to do the things that matter, that give me purpose and direction, that improve the lives of the people I care about, and that's it.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what you're, what that, what your friend, what that person was referring to in the news with the court case, but.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Good.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  You're proving the point.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  But I, yeah, that big part of me is like having mental sovereignty, you know, just to be able, there's so many things vying for, you know, our attention, which is, which I think is, you know, because I do believe in, you know, I like, I love your words, when you talk about, what is it, protecting, providing, presiding, you know, for, for, for me, a lot of it starts with perceiving, like, I feel like if I could perceive things, you know, that, that I could, that I could better protect, or if I could perceive, like, situational awareness, right? If I could perceive things I could protect, or if I, or perceive threats, or perceive market forces, I could better provide, or if I could, if I want to preside, I have

• 10:51Speaker 02

  to proceed, I have to be able to perceive my internal awareness about what I, who I am, what I stand for, you know, the vision of, you know, want to be able to build for, you know, our, our company, our family, you know, vision for the kids. So it's like, a lot of what I'm spending time is, is just inside my own mind, which is, you know, it's a, yeah, so I'm just thinking like, but I'm also thinking, when I'm thinking about mental sovereignty, right, use sovereignty, you usually hear that word, you know, think of nations or whatever, but I'm thinking about, like, the space between our ears, like, who's in charge of your mind, you know, because, you know, if we don't decide what deserves our attention, there's enough forces out there that are, you know, that, that, that

• 11:35Speaker 02

  will, you know, it's like, all the different, think about all the thousands of companies and the algorithms, the advertisers, and the politicians, and the influencers, and now AI compete, all competing for like, our thoughts and our attention, you know, so that's.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is. It's a, it's a constant bombardment of material and information, and I think unless we as men are discerning of that, yeah, it can consume us, it can wrap up, up, up very quickly and create real problems. But I am glad that you expanded a little bit on the idea of perceive, because initially, when you said perceive, my mind went directly towards emotions, like, perception is subjective, right? So I immediately went to what a lot of people in modern culture do, is this whole, well, it feels wrong, right? It, it makes me feel bad. And I think we need to be really cautious of that. That's

• 12:35Speaker 00

  not what you were saying, because you gave it context, but immediately, that's where I went, and I'm glad you gave it that context.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I feel like, it's also even perceiving new information, you know, like, that whole idea of, like, to become strong opinions, maybe even loosely held, based on our ability to be a little bit flexible based on new, new information, you know, and facts, and, but there's a lot of forces out there, and a lot of misinformation, you know, I'm really concerned about AI, where, you know, when we, last time we talked, you know, years ago on the show, it's like, people outsourcing their memory to their devices, and then our memory gets, you know, starts atrophying, where we can't remember things, as devices do it. I'm really concerned about AI, where people are, you know, offloading their, their thinking. And I think that's gonna be, that's gonna be a big problem. I don't, if you're allowed, and I don't think most people realize the scale, in a world

• 13:27Speaker 02

  where, because, I mean, we're tracking this, where people are, you go into AI automatically to think for them, to decide for them, and I feel that, you know, part of what we have to do is, we have, you know, life is a little bit, has to have friction, right, has to have challenge, because without challenge, there is no change, just like physically, you have to challenge yourself, but mentally, if, you know, if it's doing the work for us, it's like going, that's like going to the gym, asking your friends to lift the weights for you or something, it's just, you know, and it, you know, if they remove all the friction, then what happens to those, what happens when we cognitively surrender, right, then our, our mental faculties, our, our, our, our logic, you know, our reason,

• 14:09Speaker 02

  our judgment, our critical thinking, just, it just atrophies, much like if I put my arm in a cast for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger, it wouldn't stay the same, it would, it would just get weaker. And what happens when we, what happens at a societal level or civilization, to that no longer can think for themselves, then you become very easy to manipulate, you know, then, you know, when we think about authorities and agendas, and, you know, we can't sort through, you know, decide what something means, you know, what, you know, is appropriate action to take, you know, be able to sort through misinformation, all this stuff. So, you know, I don't, I don't want AI, I don't want our natural intelligence to become artificial, you know, so I feel like, you know, it's kind of like, like, we're

• 14:54Speaker 02

  just not going to get any, any stronger mentally, you know, we're not going to be, you know, I talk about cognitive anti-fragility, where you don't just bounce back, where you, to a default place where you're resilient, you actually bounce forward, you know, and that's what nature does, right? You lift weights, and you don't, and, you know, what was, what was once hard becomes easy, because you adapt. Well, you know, our brains can adapt also, their neuroplasticity, it remodels itself, you know, based on our thoughts, and then what we say, what we do consistently. But yeah, I'm really, on the plane ride back, yeah, last night, I was sitting next to somebody, and they were watching this movie, Wally, and I, I didn't have my earphone, you know, they were listening in, but I just saw these

• 15:35Speaker 02

  scenes where it's, it's the future, and, and, you know, they're on the spaceship, and all the humans are morbidly, morbidly obese, right, and they're sitting in these pods that are taking them place to place, you know, around this in, inside city, whatever, they have their screens and big screens in front of them, they have a big gulp soda, or whatever it is there, and it's just, you know, that, that, I don't know, like, we have this comfort crisis, right, where everything is optimized for comfort, you know, and I just feel like life is difficult for one of two reasons, either we're leaving that comfort zone, right, we're doing the hard things, or life is difficult if we stay in the comfort zone, too, right, because, you know, we just don't grow, because I, without

• 16:19Speaker 02

  struggle, there's no strength, you know, I just feel like, I've never met, I've never met a strong person that had an easy life, you know, and so, very, very concerned with the idea of comfort, but especially how AI is doing, a lot, a lot of lifting, and what we will turn into, you know, mentally.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  You know, what's funny is, so I told you before we hit record, I lived in Maine for a bit, and I'm actually heading out there this week, and when my family and I got out there, I went to the convenience store, and there was this woman there that I ended up becoming friends with, she was a great lady, and we laughed and joked, and she asked where we were from, and she loved the family, and it was really cool, but she said, this was within the first two weeks, maybe, of moving there, she said, her name's Jill, she said, hey, you know what people are calling you, right? And I'm like, no, I don't know what people are calling us. And she said, they're calling you the weird workout people. And

• 17:20Speaker 00

  the reason is, is because we'd have big tractor tires and big wooden telephone poles, and we're like lifting them and carrying them around, and the guys would come out to my house, and we'd do workouts in the yard. And it actually brought up something kind of interesting for me, and I said, well, yeah, we like to work out and stay busy, and she's like, well, yeah, we do, too. I'm like, well, what do you do? If, what I'm doing is weird. She's like, well, we chop and we split wood, we fix our houses, we till the fields, we take care of our livestock, we feed our animals, we butcher and slaughter our own animals. And it got me thinking, I'm like, yeah, duh, that's how it used to

• 18:00Speaker 00

  be, is like, you didn't need to go work out, you just live life. And although we have some good things in the relative ease of modernity, we've also lost a lot of sense of humanity, and I worry about that with AI, too, for sure. But where, let me ask you this, though. Are you anti-AI, or are you use AI in the right way?

• 18:24Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I don't know if comfort is the enemy, but I, I love, I love convenience, right? I mean, we, we live in an age where, you know, prior emperors and, you know, kings and queens, they would have died for, like, be able to get an airplane, be able to have access to all the world's information, your phone, be able to have, you know, like, the temperature control and lighting and light, all that, right, and that would be, that's so much abundance. So I love convenience, I love, I love technology, actually, you know, I use AI every day, you know, it's, it's not about, for me, it's never, it's not about rejecting progress, it's about remembering how human beings really grow, right? Like you were saying, like, you've been around, you're like one of the OGs of

• 19:07Speaker 02

  podcasting, you, you've probably inspired millions of people, you know, to work out, and for example, you know, people's muscles grow because of resistance, but nobody gets stronger, right, nobody gets stronger sitting on the couch, just thinking about working out, right? And the brain follows the same principle, it adapts to challenge, right? So, and neuroplasticity. So my, my thing is, AI, my concern is, like, people say, like, oh, well, artificial intelligence, you know, become more human, I'm maybe sure, but I'm really concerned that human intelligence will become artificial. Like, what happens to society that no longer is able to think and be creative and do all these things, then, then anything, then anything where it creates is going to be derivative, it's

• 19:52Speaker 02

  going to be so generic, right? You know, and so, the, the brain works like through challenge, right, it needs novelty, it needs nutrition, just like your, your body does. You give it novelty, you chop that wood, you know, you plow those fields, you, you lift those weights, novelty, but then you have to give it nutrition, right, proper nutrition, and, and it grows. Same thing with your brain, you need to challenge it, and then give it proper nutrition, so it could just grow while it sleeps, just like your muscles grow when they sleep, you know, but I'm concerned that, you know, cognitively, these circuits, if we stop using them, then they become less efficient over time. I mean, just imagine, like, if.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Every staircase disappears tomorrow, right? Escalators would be, and elevators would be amazing, but we don't, our legs won't get stronger. Right? If you have to take a car to go 10 blocks to run an errand, technology, you know, that car is a technology, but then we don't get our steps in. You know, so all, all technology has changed the way we live and how we think, right? Like, and, you know, when the industrial age came, like, it was a force multiplier for physicality, right? Machines could do things faster and better than a lot of humans could do it. And it sort of changed the economy. You know, I'm concerned with AI because I feel like it's also gonna, it's replacing a lot of jobs, you know?

• 21:16Speaker 02

  A lot of people have spent their whole career studying something, doing something, and then all of a sudden, if AI could do it faster and better, it's not just the job challenge of adapting, it's also the identity challenge, right? Because so many people identify themselves, you know, as a radiologist. But right now, AI could, could see, you know, these, could see things a thousand times better than a human eye can. So like, you know, what happens at an identity level? I think there's identity crisis. I get to work with a lot of people shifting identities, whether they're in the NFL, you know, I'm part of the alumni association, like transitioning to other things or vets, right? You leave the military and yet, and you have an identity, something, and then you have

• 21:59Speaker 02

  a community, you know, whether it's a sports team, or it's the army, or the air force. You know, and so, so you're leaving the community, which a lot of people, you know, it's hard also because community is huge, you know? And so I think it's really great, like, you build community, right? We were talking about before the recording, for, for, for your listeners, for your members. I think people need that because we're, you know, you pull on, like, I mean, for, besides the fact that as it's survival, you know, like, you're safer in numbers, we also borrow from, you know, the belief, like, we'll regulate our nervous system based on people we spend time with, you know, around somebody who's at peace, then, you know, you'll be more at peace, you know? You, you, you regulate based on people's belief in you.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  You get courage, you know, from someone believing, you know, you know, somebody up here, a good, good friend, family member believing in you. So, um, yeah, so I'm, I'm, I'm, I use AI. I just don't want, I do something, I have a, I do certain things before I use AI, just so I can keep mentally fit, because I don't want that to atrophy. So that would be, that would be a thing, because it's always happened, right? Like GPS, people no longer have to navigate themselves. Technology tells you where and when to turn, you know?

• 23:17Speaker 00

  People don't even know, understand the grid system. Like, that's what's wild to me. I'm like, look, if you're on 100 north and you need to go to 200 north, what direction would you go? And people are like, I don't know. I'm like, how about one block north?

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so like, and that's the thing, so we don't have to exercise our visual spatial intelligence, right? You know, or every technology, autocorrect to replace spelling, right? AI could write for you, algorithms could recommend, you know, whatever. And so we don't have to really do the calculators, right? We don't have to do math or whatever. And, and I, and comfort is a wonderful reward, but it's a terrible trainer, right? You know, the greatest men that you meet didn't become strong because life was easy. They became strong because they stopped avoiding, you know, resistance, right? They do difficult things, you know, so they could stay capable. And I feel like that's more of the goal, because I'd rather have peace, like, that,

• 24:15Speaker 02

  I fear for me, that that's, that's more, you know, that's something that is valuable to me, but I think peace has to come, comes with capacity, you know, meaning you're capable, as opposed to kind of surrendering it. Or comfort, I feel like, is the effect of, I don't know, it feels like comfort is something that we're just, somebody's allowing us to, it just feels different than having sovereignty and having peace to be able to do certain things when you want to be able to do it.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  I've had this, um, this thought of, and I've talked about this with guys for years, and it might just be a semantical difference, but words mean something, and so I've given these different meanings, but this idea of a safe space. And so when I hear the term safe space, which is not as popular as it was maybe five or six years ago, what I envision, and I think what people are saying, is a place free of hardship, blissfully ignorant. But what I, what I, I was kind of riffing on this with some guys, and we came up with the term secure space. It's a space where you're free to think, where you're free to express yourself, where you're free to talk about your struggles.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  We're not free of challenge, we're not free of accountability, we're not free of other guys leaning on you, pressing on you, but we are trying to create an environment where even though you might be challenged, we're doing it from a position where you can express yourself that way. It's not the absence of struggle, it's the ability to handle struggle as it arises.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  That, that, that works for me. Like, I feel like, we talk about cognitive anti-fragility and just how, how important it is to be able to, to be not only just resilient, be able to adapt and be stronger.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  You know, because, like, you don't have to run towards traumatic things, right? But we, but we shouldn't run away from challenge. We should have difficult conversations, or we should, we should learn difficult skills. We should even, I feel like, sometimes read books or listen to people that we disagree with, right? Because I feel like there's some, some, some, some mental work out there. I think it's, you know, important to, to travel, to see other people, you know, like, see other points of views, we have to seek feedback, to put yourself in rooms where you're not the strongest or smartest person, right? I feel like every one of these experiences stretches us, right, our thinking. You know, because the comfort zone is like a prison with like invisible walls, you know?

• 26:57Speaker 02

  But the more often you could leave it, I feel like the bigger our world becomes, you know? And so I feel like, um, yeah, that's.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  Well, that's why I liked what you said, and I wrote it down here. You said, "Strong opinions loosely held." I like that concept, where you can be convicted about a thing, but you're also still open to being wrong or shown a new way of looking at it. That's a really interesting phrase.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, that, that's not, that's not mine. I don't know, I don't know who.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  I think I have heard it before, yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's like, but I, I think it's, because like, who wants to have the exact same thinking and belief system as they did, you know, 15 years ago? Like, because then I feel like.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  The people who are listening to you do, because what they'll say is, they'll say, "Well, you know, Ryan, you're saying this today, but four years ago, when you did a podcast with Jim, you said this." I'm like, yeah, yeah, I hope, I hope I have a slightly, not in principle necessarily, but an application, I hope I have a different perspective of it. I would expect that to be the case.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I, and I feel like that's good, because, I mean, this is how evolution, that we evolve, you know? It's also like, going back to comfort, like, for me, it's, like, I don't want to confuse comfort with peace, like, again, because they're different for me. Peace comes from capacity, you know? You could, I could have peace because I'm capable, right? But comfort comes often from, like, almost like a dependency, just feels like one, one's making you more free, the other one makes you more fragile, you know? And I just, that's where I don't want, even like when I'm thinking about my young kids, like, I want them to be capable so they could wither storms, and they're, they're strong and confident, and they have courage to do those things, and, you know, explore outside

• 28:49Speaker 02

  of the comfort zone. Because the truth is, some, you know, sometimes growth, like, change can be scary, right? Growth can be hard, it requires work. But I feel like also at a fundamental level, nothing is as scary and hard as being stuck somewhere, like, you don't belong, or stuck as the person you don't belong, right? But it takes, it takes energy, it takes purpose, you know? It takes, you know, movement to become that, you know?

• 29:13Speaker 00

  You know, I was thinking, as you were saying that, it's like, maybe here's an analogy, I don't know if this will land or not, but let's say you and I are on a deserted island, and we have no access to technology, and because we have no access to no technology, we're not tempted, let's say, by pornography. And so we might say we're chaste, but are we? Because it's not even available to us, versus being in modern times where you have access to that all over the place, your computer, your phone, billboards, shops, stores. And if you resist or stay strong against that temptation, I would say that individual is more righteous than the individual who did not even have the temptation to begin with.

• 29:56Speaker 00

  It's, it's the temptation to be lazy, it's the temptation to be slothful, it's the temptation to be, to covet. And fighting against that, that is what actually makes you not only a righteous person, but a strong one.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think a big part of that is, you know, that's like, that's an inner cognitive, you know, emotional workout to be able to pull it back, just like how we do exercises in focus. You're distracted and you pull it back, you know, to your breath or whatever it is, get centered in sports, you know, it's definitely something that gets stronger than, you know, because you're more capable when that stressor happens, right? Like it's, yeah, if those things aren't in your environment, then it's, it's, it's easy. It's just like, it's easy to just, you know, when things are perfect, just to do things perfect. It's under pressure or temptation or some kind of stressor. And I think, I think a big part of this is built around like, you know, what, like, what makes a man like, trust

• 30:58Speaker 02

  himself, right? Just like if we're engaging with other people, friends or family members or work associates, if they constantly say they're gonna do something and they don't do it, what's, you know, they're breaking trust, but even more so is the conversation we've, the longest conversation we've ever had, which is with ourself, right? Like every time, like, we say we're gonna do something to ourselves, forget about anybody else, we don't even have to post it, but we break that trust. You know, I feel like self-trust isn't built always by winning, it's, it's built by keeping promises to yourself, right? And then like, you're the kind of man who does what they, what you say you're going to do, and I feel like that will override, because then, then you do the thing every

• 31:41Speaker 02

  single day, like, record, we were talking about this before, like, we record the podcast, you know, content for your community, because that's your commitment to yourself, right? And to your community, but that builds trust with the community, because it's consistent. But it's also more important is like, you're the kind of person that shows up and does what they say. And I don't know how bigger lead domino, you know, in life than that, because what can you, what can't, you know, what can't you do when you, when you have that belief in yourself that you're gonna follow through? And, you know, on the other side, what can you do if you didn't have that? It'd be very hard. So I feel like self-trust. And that's how you get pride, right? Like, you get pride, I was doing this, by, by,

• 32:22Speaker 02

  by doing hard things, like, I don't, I just did this talk in New York City, and it was for family office, and there are 44 billionaires there. It was insane, an incredible amount of wealth. But, you know, there's this conversation about, you know, the generation that created all the wealth, generation, let's say, one, what happened in generation two, generation three, and what happened to the level of wealth, you know, typically, comically, it just goes down, you know, tremendously, you know, because I just feel like, you know, the ones that generated it, you know, that broke that, you know, cycle of poverty or whatever it was, they did the work, they built the character, they did the discipline, they did, you know, and then when people are given certain things, and they have to earn it, then who do they become, right? Like, it's just, I don't know, like, trying

• 33:07Speaker 02

  to, and I'm honestly thinking about this now, just having young children, you know, who are growing up a lot different than, my parents immigrated here, and six of us shared one bathroom, and we live in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at, you know, I don't know, like, you know, it's, it's, it's different. But I, but I like this deliberate discomfort, you know, challenging, you know, ourselves at different ages and stages. So, you know, we, we stay strong and capable.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  All right, guys, let me just pull you away for a second. There are three ways, from what I can tell, in doing this work for 11 years and being on this dang planet for 45, that, that, that men respond when things get hard. You know, for example, like, when your family is in, is in chaos or turmoil, or when your team at work is falling apart, or when someone you love and admire and appreciate is spiraling, you can become an enforcer, where you crack down and you try to control everyone around you. You can also become the rescuer. And so you're running around fixing everybody else's problems, while their life continues to spiral and while your own life falls apart. Or, you can become the

• 34:18Speaker 00

  anchor. That's the man who stays steady, who doesn't need to dominate, or rescue, or save anybody, because he's done the work on himself, and he's going to allow others the opportunity to work on themselves. And what I've seen is that most men don't even know which one they default to. So that's exactly what we're gonna break down, live, in our September War Room. That's gonna be held September 9th at 8:00 PM Eastern, and we're gonna dive, dive deep on why the enforcer and rescuer both come from the same place, which is fear, and what it actually signals about a person. And you might be surprised to learn that both the enforcer and the rescuer have the same signal that they're working

• 35:03Speaker 00

  towards or trying to fix. And you're also gonna learn what it actually takes to become the anchor for your family, for your community, for your employees, for your clients, for the people who are relying on you. So, this is free, it's a live event, and I'm telling you, it's powerful. We had 115 guys, I believe, on the last War Room that we did. So I want you to show up. Again, that's gonna be held September 9th at 8:00 PM Eastern. And if you go to orderofman.com/warroom, you can get registered and save your seat. And also, just invite somebody else. Invite your father, your brother, your business partner, your son. Bring another man, and let's blow this thing up. But we're gonna, again, we're gonna

• 35:45Speaker 00

  be talking about the enforcer, the rescuer, and the anchor. Go to orderofman.com/warroom. You can do that right after the podcast. For now, let's get back to it with Jim.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Well, and I also think the importance of, you talked about the longest conversation you've ever had is the one you had with yourself. I think we have this tremendous ability to deceive ourselves, because we know ourselves so well. All I have to do is say, it's better for me, I'm, let me give you an example. I can, I can skip out on this obligation, because my kids need me. Now, that might be true, in some circumstances, and it might be a little bit of a stretch in others, that lets me get off the hook. In reality, what that could be, and I've seen guys do this all the time, they'll say, for example, well, you know, Ryan, I would love to work out daily, but my kids need me there for

• 36:39Speaker 00

  them. As if, as if you're saying that anybody who works out is not there for their family. That's a false dichotomy, but it's something that many men will tell themselves, and it sounds really good. It's a noble obstacle. It's like, yeah, you're, I'm making the right decision. Yeah. But what you're doing is you're actually tricking yourself and hiding behind your children in that case, which is horrible.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  And it's tough when we, because I, you know, I'm guilty of it also, like, when we negotiate with ourselves, you know, and, and that, and again, it's that conversation that lands more than, you know, any other conversation you're gonna have outside of yourself. It, you know, it's tough. You know, I feel like under pressure, and I always talk about being under pressure, because again, when things are perfect, then, yeah, it's easy to work out, it's easy to build a business. I mean, there's never a perfect time to do anything, you know, parent or whatever, right? But, um, but I do think that under pressure, we don't rise to like our aspirations, or goals, and targets, and, you know, dreams, or whatever. We fall to the level of, we fall to the level of our

• 37:47Speaker 02

  systems, we fall to the level of our stories that we're telling ourself, you know, because, because a lot of times we'll hypnotize ourselves into like mediocrity, and, you know, and complain, and blame, and use our stories as, you know, the excuse for why, whatever. And it can be valid, but it doesn't change anything. So we fall to all of our systems, we fall to all of our stories. I feel like we fall to the level of our standards, you know, in terms of what, you know, we're willing to tolerate economically, physically, in a relationship, whatever. And then we fall to all of our, our self-image, you know, it's really hard to outperform how we see ourselves. And I feel like every time we negotiate with ourselves, or we break trust by not doing what we say we're gonna do,

• 38:30Speaker 02

  then that self-image, it erodes also. And I just feel like, you know, like, it's kind of like, there's something called like, it's not the same, but it's like a metaphor, or something that we teach around cognitive reserve. And cognitive reserve is this idea, it's like, you have two seniors, and they have, you know, pretty identical brains, you know, at this stage, but one of them is fully independent and focused and is capable, the other one has memory issues, and they need, they have a need to assistance, you know, living and everything, biologically or genetically, you know, they're the same, let's say, but cognitive reserve is the difference. And the cognitive reserve is built on physical activity, mental activity, social activity. It's kind of like a, like a retirement account, that you're always making deposits and, you know, every single day.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  Biological at all? Like, do some people just have more willpower, or?

• 39:20Speaker 02

  Not, not willpower, it's, um, so they're, they're, they're attributing it to something called cognitive reserve. And the science is still catching up to this, but it's like this, if two people are kind of identical, right, the same age, the same, you know, their brains look similar and everything, but one of them is exhibiting a level of solid independence and focus and, you know, capabilities. The other one is mentally, you know, not where they should be or could be, and they rely on, you know, assisted living and everything else. Cognitive reserve, they did, the, one of the big studies they did were on these nuns who were living 80, 90 and above, and it was on the cover of Time Magazine, and they found out their longevity was, part of it was their faith, their community, right? The other half, though, was they were very cognitively active. I

• 40:05Speaker 02

  mean, they're reading, they're writing, they were having discourse and debates, you know, with their, with the other nuns. And because of it, it added years to their life, and a lot of life to their years. The study's called Aging with Grace, I think it was done in the late 80s or something.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  But the idea is cognitive reserve is just, again, is doing those hard things. And physically is one thing, but mentally, it's, you're like, our brain is only 2% of our body mass, but it requires, it uses like 20% of the energy. Like, I've worked with chess, you know, competitive chess players and champions, and they can burn 7,000 calories just sitting down, stationary.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  Are you serious? Just, just using their brain, they're using that? Whoa, I never thought about that.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Because, again, my point in bringing this up is cognitively, like, it's an energy hog. It requires it because it, and that's why, because it takes so much energy, that I, that maybe people don't spend a lot of time thinking, and it's a lot easier to get mentally, get mental convenience from using AI. Because thinking, there's some kind of quote out there that says, thinking is the hardest job that there is. That's why few people indulge in it, you know, that kind of thing. Because it uses up so much energy to have original thoughts, to solve problems, to, and, you know, like even, you know, decision fatigue, you know, I'm sure you've had, you know, or your listeners have had the situation, they're just had a really long day at work or whatever. They go, and they're at a restaurant, you know, and they're looking at a menu,

• 41:36Speaker 02

  they don't even know what to order, because they're just cognitively spent. They've, they're, they have decision fatigue, they've used up all their good decisions, because they use up so much energy, you know, but it's hard. You know, it's hard, it's hard to challenge ourselves, to challenge the way we're thinking. Like, even with AI, I use it mostly not to create things for me. Like, I have this thing, okay, so, like, I use, you asked this question about AI, and I think most, maybe a lot of your listeners probably are starting adapting it. Do you use AI at all yourself?

• 42:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I personally use it, absolutely.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, so this is how I use it, you know, again, the challenge is cognitive offloading. They did a study at MIT where they had three groups of students write essays, group A, B, and C. And group A used ChatGPT, groups B used Google to write the essay, group C didn't use either. And when they scanned their brains to see which one was most cognitively active, engaged, obviously group C, right, because they did the work themselves. Group A use AI, there's very little engagement. What was interesting is they tested for comprehension and retention of what they produced, the essays themselves. And group A, as you can imagine, didn't remember or understand hardly any of it.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  They didn't earn anything.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Exactly, see, they didn't, they didn't earn it or learn it, right? And so it's just like, you can't buy a fit body, right? You have to earn it. You can't buy, you know, a great relationship, you have to work on it and earn it. You can't buy, the things that are valuable, like, you know, great raising kids, you can't mail that in, right? It requires that thoughtfulness, the intention, the consistency, you know, so you can't buy it. And isn't interesting in nature, like, people say like, oh, I, you know, I want more energy. Well, you have to use your energy, the thing you want, you have to use, right? You want more love, you have to use love, you want more focus, you have to use your focus, right? You want greater strength, you have to be using your strength to work, you know, to move, to get more strength, right?

• 43:32Speaker 02

  So the thing you want most in life, whether it's strength, or energy, or focus, or memory, or love, or anything, right? You have to employ it, you know, to be able to get it back, you use your strength, get more strength. Yeah, and that's what.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  Financially, like, if you want to, you want to create a passive investment, you have to invest to use it. I love that, that makes a ton of sense.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Exactly, so it doesn't, because nothing stays, you know, at the same level, because, you know, with inflation, or economics, or just aging, everything will never stay, you know, just at one standard. So, yeah, the thing you want the most, you have to exercise. And so, the thing, if people want, you know, the things that they want, they consider. So like, for AI, for example, I use an acronym that I haven't taught, I don't teach in books or anything, but it's B, build. My mantra is, I want to build my own intelligence before I borrow, right, from AI. And so, so the B stands for brainstorm. So let's say I want to go to AI about a situation that I'm dealing with, a client thing, whatever. First I brainstorm myself, right?

• 44:34Speaker 02

  I want to start doing something, doing some reps before, you know, because again, AI is like, going to the gym, asking your friends to lift the weights for you, I don't want them to do the lifting yet. And then after I brainstorm this situation a little bit, the U in the acronym build is, I want to understand what the real problem is. I find that so many people in life are optimizing for the wrong problem, or the wrong prompt, or the wrong question. Meaning that, you know, like, AI, I just want to, just, I want to presence this. AI is, it can scale, and it can amplify, but it can only scale and amplify what we bring to it, right? So if somebody is chaotic and confused, uncertain, it'll amplify that, right? Just like money will amplify somebody, like, you know, whether, you know, who they are.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  This, so, but if somebody's clear, and they're capable, and they're competent, right? That's going to scale differently. So AI, and AI is not a competitive advantage, because everybody has access to it, right?

• 45:30Speaker 00

  Right, sure.

• 45:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like information, it's not a competitive advantage, everybody could get access to any information today, you know? And so, if AI, but somebody could use AI to make a nice social media post, great, big deal. But somebody else could use AI to make the next billion dollar venture, right? It's the human intelligence that gets magnified. And so, you know, I always think that AI, human intelligence is more important, it's greater than AI. It's like AI, it's like, if AI was, I watch a lot of Marvel stuff, you get, like, let's say Marvel, there's a Marvel Hulkbuster exoskeleton that could just, you know, make you really strong. Great, that's amazing, that's AI, it could, it could make, you know, do strong things. But then, the person inside that unit that's operating, it does have to get strong, right?

• 46:15Speaker 02

  Because it's doing it for you. It's just like, I get to work with a lot of athletes, helping remember plays, reaction time, thinking speed. F1 drivers, right? Like, you could have an incredible piece of technology, multimillion dollar race car, right? Multimillion dollar piece of technology, it's like AI. But ultimately, it's the human being that determines the performance of it, right? Their intelligence. And so, my goal here, you know, with AI is just, is, my goal, my whole career, 35 years, with the, whether it's speed reading, flow states, brain optimization, memory enhancement, you know, critical thinking, all the things that we've taught for decades, is to build human intelligence, you know? And so, the U is understanding, meaning, in build, meaning, really understand the problem.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Like, they say if Einstein had an hour to solve a problem, he'd spend 55 minutes figuring out what the real problem is, right? And who knows if that's a credit to Einstein, because everyone attributes everything that, everybody. I'm not, I'm not really sure, but that's, you know, that's what I was going to say, but.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  Sounds like something you would say.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Yes, and so, understanding the problem, because often the problem is not the problem, it's our assumptions and attitudes about the problem, right?

• 47:22Speaker 00

  It's the story we tell around it, right?

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Exactly, absolutely. And it's also, these are all prompts that we're going to AI for, but also, I want to remind everybody, you know, since we've been young, we've been asking these prompts of ourself. You know, why am I not enough? How come nobody loves me? How come, like, for me, I was, had a traumatic brain injury, you know, teacher called me the boy with the broken brain. And while that only took five seconds for it to say, that took me, like, that was a 10-year conversation I had with myself. You know, every single day, saying, oh, I didn't do it in school because I have the broken brain. I wasn't picked for sports this time, oh, because I'm broken, you know, like, so that, that's the challenge, right? Adults have to be very careful, their external words, because they often become a child's internal words, right? And people all the time at events will see me memorize 100 people's names in an audience and do all the things.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  You know, when I tell them, you know, I'll do this to impress you, I do this to express to you what's possible. Because, you know, I had traumatic brain injury when I was five, I had learning disabilities, had migraines every day as a kid, took me three years longer to learn how to read, you know, I was called slow all the time, you know, it was just, it was just not a happy kind of, kind of a thing, and everybody has their own story. But it's interesting, just to point this out, that our struggles could become strengths, right? That adversity can become an advantage, you know, because I wouldn't.

• 48:33Speaker 00

  And your life's work.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and my mess became my, my mission, you know, because I learned ways to compensate, but it's usually people have gone through a mess, you know, there's some things you can only learn through a storm, you know? And I just really feel like, you know, if I go through certain things, I just say, hey, you know, this sucks, and, you know, where's the gift in this? Because we hear a lot about post-traumatic stress, real thing, right? But there's also post-traumatic growth, people have been through adversity, they wouldn't wish upon anybody, but they wouldn't change it for themselves, because going through it made them who they are. And they found this trait, they found this strength, they've got clarity on what's important, a value, or identity, or mission, or whatever. And I think there's some grace in that.

• 49:14Speaker 02

  So the U in build is understanding the problem, and then the I in build is imagine, right?

• 49:22Speaker 02

  And I'd be imagining I'd come up with three answers to the prompt, you know, to the question before you go to AI. And just try to exercise your own because first of all, a lot of AI is there to placate to you, right? It just makes you like, oh, this is a great idea.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  You're wonderful. And then when you say, wait, I don't think you're telling me the truth, it'll say, you're right, I'm sorry. Now I agree with you on this.

• 49:47Speaker 02

  And that's the problem. So I would imagine my own answers first. And again, it's not like, I'm not taking an hour to do this. I'm taking like 10 minutes of priming my mind before, you know, I have AI do the lifting, much like I maybe walk a few flights of stairs, you know, and then, you know, not, and then rely on it maybe in an elevator and escalator. But, but I'm also asking myself imaginary questions. I'm like, okay, this is the problem facing, like, how would, how would a five year old look at this problem? Because, you know, it just allows me to be a little cognitively flexible, you know, because sometimes kids could see the elusive obvious, you know, on creativity tests, they'll score adults all the time. They say, hey, here's a paperclip. What can you do with it? And they'll come up with many more answers.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  I heard, I heard a story, and I don't know if this is true or not, maybe you've heard something similar, but there was a group of men, contractors, building a, a bridge, and they were building all of the support structures up on the bridge, but they had a crane that was erecting this bridge. And they actually ended up building the structures around the crane. And when the time came, they couldn't get the crane out. And they're figuring out like, what parts can we take off? How do we take the crane off the thing?

• 50:56Speaker 02

  Destroy the whole bridge?

• 50:59Speaker 00

  Right. And the kid comes along and they're like, oh, why don't you just put smaller tires on the crane, like some absurd thing, right? And they're like, yeah, we didn't consider that lowers the crane a foot and all of a sudden it's out, right?

• 51:12Speaker 02

  And that's the elusive obvious. And throughout history, like, it's kind of looked like, whenever the toilet was invented, toilet paper wasn't invented for a long, long decades later, you know, so that would have been kind of like the elusive obvious. I don't want to know what people are doing in between, but it's just like bread's been around forever, meat's been around forever, the sandwich hasn't been around forever. Like, it was just, you know, two things put together. And I, and I think kids could see that easier than adults. But then I'll ask a question on the other side. I'll be like, okay, I have this problem, and I want to imagine a solution. This is how kids would look at it. How would somebody 10 times smarter than me look at it? Right? Or how would this mentor look at it? You know, and so I would come up with three solutions. And then the L in build, so you have brainstorm, you know, is this, and then you understand the real

• 51:57Speaker 02

  problem, clarify that, imagine, you know, some solutions, three of them. And then the L in build is leverage AI. And what I, and you could go to AI and say like, hey, summarize this, and you could use it, you know, to say, hey, how would Jim Quick speed read this or learn this language or memorize this speech? Certainly, what I'd be using it for is leverage is point out my blind spots, like, where am I wrong here? Like, I'd be, I'd be saying like, okay, now pretend you are the expert that believes the opposite of me, you know, create the argument that would overpower like my thinking and challenge my beliefs. You know, I would be like, okay, AI, it's stress test this idea that I have for this business or whatever it is, you know, and to point out the risks or the downsides or

• 52:40Speaker 02

  what are the, you know, my, my cognitive biases towards this, you know, so that's how I'd use more of, that's how I use AI a little bit more than the other stuff. I mean, certainly I could go in there and for our podcast, say, hey, give me some nice questions to ask this person. And I never use anything like verbatim, because I feel like I always can make things better. But I never want to feel like AI is replacing my thinking. Because and I'm cognitively surrendering any more than I would cognitively surrender my body to just not do anything, just sit all day. And then the D in build is then I decide, you know, what to do. Because I just want to remind people that AI could far out process and out compute humans, but ultimately, human beings have to decide with this information that AI gives you, what's important, you know, why does this

• 53:25Speaker 02

  matter? What am I going to do with this information? Right? These are human things. And I'm really, my optimistic view of AI, I think one of the most important conversations to have is how do you remain deeply human in an age of AI? Right? If AI is going to be able to do this, there's like this barbell economy where AI is really going to affect the middle, the bar itself, on the weighted side, you know, one side leadership, the other side, maybe AI won't affect people, the physical world as much, right? Hairstylist, massage therapists, HVAC units, you know, my, but the middle, like, what's a coder now? Like, when people can vibe code certain things?

• 54:05Speaker 00

  Taxes, like, I'd much rather AI do my taxes, because I can look through the code.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Right. Or graphic designers or any, you know, and in between here, you know, and there's big debates in the publishing about AI writing books now and doing all this stuff, right? Making movies and everything, right? So that's a challenge. But, you know, I feel like whether AI replaces us, that's one thing, because certainly, technology over the years has replaced humans, assembly lines and, you know, ATM machines, it just goes, you know, self-check grocery, whatever, all that. Whether it replaces us, does one question, but AI will definitely reveal us, right? Because if it is amplifying and scaling, it's only going to scale and expose, you know, who we are more, like money does, right? Money's an amplifier. Somebody is a, you know, good person, they have more to do good with. If

• 54:53Speaker 02

  someone's a greedy, selfish, you know, they have more to hurt people with, right? Or take advantage of people. And so technology, for me, is not good or bad. It's like, what's an early technology? Fire, fire, right? Fire is not good or bad. It could cook your food. It could burn down your home. It's just how the user is, you know, implementing and applying it. So, you know, for me, I'm hoping that if AI could compute and process and beyond what humans could do, it's going to force us to become more human and really ask what it means to be human and focus on those aspects. Otherwise, we're not going to be valuable in society. So what, what can AI not do as well as humans? So my acronym is human, H U M A N. And this is not in the book, even in the new book either, but the

• 55:35Speaker 02

  book is the solution for it. H is heart. I feel like part of what we need to lean into is like our emotional intelligence, you know, certain qualities of strength, of courage, of maybe some empathy, compassion, things that make us more human, right? The U is going back to understanding, you know, I feel like, like AI, AI could, could feign empathy, or it could, it could like synthetically, you know, artificially be compassionate, but it doesn't know.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  I've even had AI, like, I, I'll write something and it's like, oh, I'm, I'm sorry you feel that way. And I'm like, how can you be sorry? You're not sorry. It's not a capability you have.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so AI, while it could feign it, or, you know, it's synthetic, it's artificial, it doesn't know how to, how to console, you know, a grieving child, you know, it doesn't know what it's like to go through a breakup. It doesn't know what it's like to ask for forgiveness. It doesn't, it doesn't know, because it doesn't have that experience. And the thing with AI, it could spit out a bunch of information, but it has no accountability for that information. It has no stewardship over that information, no responsibility of how it's used, as opposed to a human being that has to make a decision, have the courage to implement something and deal with the consequences, you know, of that, you know, of what that decision means. Because AI has no stake in anything, right? It's not, it's not human. Right? And so that, that's, that's a challenge. So I would say human heart, you

• 57:02Speaker 02

  know, the span of emotions, you is understanding, a deep understanding of something like, what's something, yeah, the significance of it, the wisdom, because wisdom also is not information. Wisdom is information and knowledge that has been experienced, that has been reflected on. Because a lot of people have had the same situation happen, but they haven't reflected and processed that and say, this is how I'm going to evolve because of it and move forward or what this means.

• 57:29Speaker 00

  Applied, right?

• 57:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. All that. And then the M in human mean is, for me, is meaning, which is different, that that's purpose. AI doesn't have a set purpose as like human beings. And with purpose, whether it's life purpose or doing it for your kids, or it's because, you know, you're doing it, you know, for your savior, or whatever your purpose is for doing it, you need that in order to get through difficult times, right? Through adversity, through unpredicted, you know, catastrophe, right? Human beings rely on the M, which is meaning, finding meaning in difficult things that they get bitter or they get better. But they need something like, you know, for me, a lot of it is like me not wanting to perform on three days, three nights with no sleep, kids are sick, jet lag from being

• 58:12Speaker 02

  on three continents this past week, you know, me tapping into the purpose of service, focusing on others is my, this is my mission, you know, gets me through hardship or exhaustion, right? But I feel like humans are going to go, especially with that identity crisis I was talking about, where so many people get purpose with who they are. I am a lawyer. I am a designer. I am a writer, right? And that's threatened by AI.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  What do you think is better? And I want to get to the rest of the acronym. But I, I hear what you're saying when you say, for example, I am a writer, or I am a soldier, or I am a CEO, or whatever. Like, yeah, sure, those are things that describe what you do. Let's just take writer. What, what would you change that internally to? So it's not so much wrapped up in something external as much as it might be more internal, if that makes sense? Like, how would you change that phrase in your mind, not to get wrapped up in the identity of something that could be pulled away from you?

• 59:13Speaker 02

  So a big like, so it'd be, I, I, I, I, okay. So whether or not people choose to wrap their identity with, with it or not is their choice. I'll point out some of the, you know, the drawbacks of something like that. Putting your identity as something that could be taken away could be a challenge, you know, that you don't directly control, like the economy or your boss or something else like that, then all of a sudden, who are you worth when you get fired as a writer from this publisher, you know, this magazine or whatever it happens to be? That's a challenge. You know, I feel like, you know, two of the most powerful words in the human language are the shortest, "I am," because whatever you put after that, talking about your self-image, that you cannot perform your self-image.

• 59:55Speaker 02

  And, you know, so much of what we do is remain consistent with how we define ourselves. And this could be also to negative, like, "I am a smoker, I am, I am a procrastinator, I am a..."

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  I am an alcoholic. That's one, that's one that I, so I've had my own struggles with alcohol abuse. And I remember sitting in AA meetings and there was a woman who, bless her heart, and she, I actually really resonated with her, she was very successful, but she'd been sober for 30 years. And in AA, you introduce yourself and you say, "Hey, I'm Ryan, I'm an alcoholic." So she's been saying this for 33 years. And I'm sitting there like, "Are you though?" Like, I, I know that you might be tempted by it, I know that you might have, it might have a greater influence on you, but why do we need to wrap up our identity in that? How does that help us? Maybe it does for some people, maybe it doesn't. But I always kind of took issue with that when she said that.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think people have to audit their words because they often become their instructions almost. Like, people don't realize how powerful their mind is. Like, if they did, they probably wouldn't say or think something they didn't want to be true. That's not to say you have a negative thought and it ruins your life, right? That's like eating a donut won't ruin your life. But if you eat the donut 100 times a day, like people say negative things to themselves 100 times a day, every single day, then there'll definitely be a consequence. And I feel like a lot of what we say to ourselves is like an unconscious instruction. Like, if someone comes, you know, you're like, almost like your brain is a supercomputer. So people say, you know, "I, I'm not good at remembering names." You won't remember the name of the next person you meet because you programmed your supercomputer not to, because your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk.

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  So, you know, like, I think what would be something a little bit, like, we don't have just one set identity around, you know, it's a career, but certainly yet that events, like, you know, "Hey, who are you?" Like, "Oh, I am, I, you know, like, that's certainly the go-to. But yeah, it'd be nice to live in a society, well, people identify with other things, you know? Some people identify around politics, you know, "I am a this," or, or religion, or a certain, "I'm a vegan," or whatever, you know? Some people identify with roles of, of being a father, right? Or an entrepreneur, or, you know, "I am, or I'm a warrior." It could be also something more, you know, more like, "This is who, who I am." And I feel like that's the biggest question, I think.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  It's like every day, you know, I hear, like, you're in your episode, you could talk about, you know, courage, right? People either, people are either training like courage or they're training avoidance. They're always training something, right? They're training discipline, or they're training distraction. Like, they're mentally rehearsing fear, or they're, or something that's something. And a lot of it comes back to memory. Like, while I teach people to remember facts, figures, foreign languages, names and faces, whatever, ultimately, I want people, you know, to remember who they are. Because like, we, we, we get courage, or confidence is often remembered successes, right? You have evidence that you are this person. Or fear sometimes comes from remembered failures, like, we're focusing on that. Or wisdom comes from remembered lessons. Or expertise comes from remembered experience, right?

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  So memory is a lot more than just, I feel like, remembering client information, product information, give speeches without notes. You know, it's, it's like who we are. But I feel like we're always training something. We're either training distraction or training focus, right? Or rehearsing in our mind, you know? So it's like, you know, we're either training like patience, or impulsiveness, or leadership, or making excuses. But I want to remind you, like, so much of knowledge is, is not power because when it's not applied, right? Somebody could go out there and listen to a podcast or read a book, not apply it, and their life is no different than somebody who's illiterate, who couldn't even read that book to begin with, right? And so, all the podcasts, courses, coaching, you know, none of it works unless we work, right?

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  Like, we can't be upset by the results we didn't get from the work we didn't do, you know? And using, you know, complaining or making excuses, while they could be valid and changes nothing, and that's the challenge. Like, if you're watching this on video, like, I have the, um, the arena hat on.

• 1:03:53Speaker 00

  Arena hat, yeah.

• 1:03:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's just to remind, just because I have on my wall, like, you know, the Theodore Roosevelt quote, but it's just like, and that's been like rent-free in my mind for so long, you know? But I just, I, I go by that because I, I like being around, like, one of the reasons I connect to your material, because you're very raw and real, right? And you practice what you post. That nobody here is perfect, and no one, and nobody here is claiming to ever be perfect, but you're in the arena, right? Like, what's the quote go? It's just like, it's not the critic who counts, right? It's not the man who could point out right in the cheap seats, right? Like, you know, how a strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  better, the credit belongs to the person, to the man who's actually in the arena, right? Who's marred with the dust, you know, the sweat, the blood, you know?

• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  All of it.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  You know, all that, but still striving valiantly, who makes mistakes and errors, but comes up short again and again. But there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but actually just striving to, to do, do these kind of great deeds with great enthusiasm, right? Like, so it's that, as opposed to the person who's in the cheap seats and that stands, like, and I just as a reminder to everybody who's concerned about other people's opinions and expectations, and I put this in Limitless, like, I wouldn't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from. And that, for me, that eliminates like 90% of like my fears, whatever people think, because, you know, not going, you know?

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  And so, yeah, I admire, so I have the, the word arena on my hat, but it's just a reminder that, you know, to get into it, because it's better well done than well said, you know? And it's better to, you know, don't promise, just prove, you know? And I just feel like the life we live are the lessons that, that we teach. And when it comes to identity, I think it's just important to always expand ourselves, you know? Like, you can expand your identity because we're not any one thing, you know, any one time, um, you know? And then also just self-image, and expand our systems, just get better systems in for fitness, for business, for things that just, you don't have to use a lot of energy for, you know, because first we create our systems, and our systems create us back. And then, you know, raise our standards, you know?

• 1:06:10Speaker 02

  Because I think that, that's good way of getting out of our comfort zone, because, you know, where we don't settle for anything less than, you know? But it's not defined a lot of times. Um, you know, and who set those standards and, you know, in terms of what we desire, what we deserve, you know? I don't know. It's, it's a big conversation for sure.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  It is. There's so much to talk about. Well, I, I would love to hear the rest of the acronym. We got A, Heart, Understanding and Meaning. And I'd also love for you to share with the guys where to connect, learn more about you, the upcoming book, everything else that you've got going on. Because I know guys are going to hear this and be excited about it and say, "Okay, now what? Well, I want to give them a place to go."

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  No, this one, this one will definitely help you. This is, my book is all about the A in human, after, after meaning and purpose is adaptation. You know, I feel like that's what, that's where a strong sovereign man is able to adapt. You know, they'll be able to, to adapt their muscles, their mind, to be able to handle difficult things, right? And so, I, it's important to unlearn, to, to relearn, you know, things, not just learn, you know, learn what it takes to be who you, you know, who would get this, you know, not this goal, but the kind of person, the kind of man who is, it's inevitable that this goal could happen, you know, in terms of what they want. You know, for me, intelligence, when I was saying, like, my work is around human intelligence,

• 1:07:37Speaker 02

  intelligence for me is defined by how you use your brain and direct your mind to create the life you want. Meaning, somebody can know a lot about, read every book, be very book smart on money, but if their bank accounts are reflecting it, how smart are they really? How intelligent are they really? Somebody can read every, listen to every podcast on health and fitness, you know, but if their body doesn't reflect that, you know, how intelligent are they? So, you know, how to use your brain and direct your mind, which is so much of it, to get, to create the life you want, the results that you want. Part, big part of that is the A is adaptation, you know, our ability to adapt. And that's paramount because what that is is about is about cognitive flexibility.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  Just like when we talked about being able to change our opinions based on new data. You know, but some, some, let's say, brands that are very famous, they were cognitively rigid. Like when you're physically more, more pliable and flexible, then you're gonna, you're gonna bend, but not break. It's like you do this mental parkour. You can read about other things, like people who have achieved highest level of success. They have hobbies, right? Because they have distinctions and other interests that give, allow them to fuel their mission and their, their specialty. And that's, that's very clear. Like the cognitive rigidity is like blockbuster video. Like where are they now? They weren't, they, they saw it coming, but they didn't change. They were, they didn't adapt. What's Kodak?

• 1:09:02Speaker 02

  I'm aging ourselves, but like, you know, they created the backbone for digital, they, digital photography, but they shelved it, right? They, they, they didn't adapt. And now where, where's Kodak now, right? And they invented the technology for digital photos. But they were, they're cognitively rigid. So adaptation is very important in an age of AI. And then the N in human, I would say is nexus. And that's just my way of fitting in the social aspect. That's leadership. That's fatherhood, right? That, that's where we, the, the social connections. That's building a community, you know, a movement. This is the interpersonal skills, which, which AI is not going to do anywhere near as good as, as, as humans will, because we are, we are social creatures.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  So I feel like those five areas of heart, understanding, meaning, adaptation, and nexus, meaning those connections. I'd imagine if we start focusing on those, because AI is not going to easily compete with that, then I feel like we, the AI revolution could lead to a human evolution. Where it's not about going in the past, it's about taking those natural principles and bring them into the present to make us more human and in, and in the future with our kids and hence society as a whole.

• 1:10:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's powerful. Well, Jim, I appreciate you, man. I always enjoy our conversations. It was funny, I was pulling up notes here and I'm, I'm taking some notes as we go. We, the last conversation that we had was November 6th of 2023. I just pulled that up. I was looking through this a little bit. We even talked about at that point, a little, a little bit about AI, but I'm sure we weren't quite aware of how that would transform over the past almost three years. But Jim, how do we connect with you and learn more about what you're up to?

• 1:10:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. So my, my big book is coming out, Limitless. You sold a couple of million copies. It was an order manual for your brain. And it overtook Obama's book for three days straight to be the number one nonfiction book on all of Amazon. And I'm very proud of the work. We donated it all to charity, built schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, for boys and girls who had no access to education, provided healthcare, clean water, also helped fund Alzheimer's research for women in memory of my grandmother, who I lost to Alzheimer's when I was seven. So books is like, I'm on a mission that happens to, I also have to write books. My big one is called Limitless Daily. People can see it on limitlessdaily.com. And this is, and this here's a takeaway for everybody here.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  When you wake up, regardless of when you get the book, or like if you get the book or not, this book is a mental upgrade in just five minutes a day. It's like a daily book, like daily stoic, right? It's not pulling on stoicism, it pulls on science, the science of the mind, which is psychology, is science of, of a brain, which is neuroscience. And it gives them one brand new idea, written in an inspiring way, yet with a science backing it up why it works. And then a two-minute implementation thing that they could do to earn their dopamine, you know, to exercise their mind and a new identity statement. And it's a complete transformation because I realized that, you know, when people are asking for the follow-up book to Limitless, I was like, people don't need another book that's on their shelf. They need it, they need, they need a new habit, right?

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  They need, they need, they need a new practice that they, so they're not getting through a book. The book is getting through them, right? And so this is a daily, you put in August 21st and then there's the entry. And everybody in the world is reading the same entry. Their whole entry takes three minutes to read with the two-minute exercise. And then that's the other thing, like so many people want the free dopamine, right? That they don't, they're into junk food, the porn, the doom scrolling, they have to, no effort. You just get stimulated, right? The dopamine, which is the molecule of motivation. And they wonder why their motivation is just wiped to do the things they need to do. It's not, this is a big misconception. You don't wait to be motivated to take action. You take a little bit of action, you get the dopamine that you've earned and the dopamine keeps you moving and creates momentum, right?

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  They say like, if you don't work out, the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door, right? It's just getting yourself to the thing, like breaking it down, just doing a little bit and that will reinforce it. And so with this book, I give people the opportunity to change their identity, because I think people overestimate what they could do in a day, but they underestimate what they could become in a year. And we had James Clear on our podcast when Atomic Habits first came out. And he was saying like, just, just improving 1% a day over the course of a year. Most people think that's a multiple of two times better, or five times better, or 10 times better even. It's 37 times better. So if you just improve at anything 1% a day, 37 times multiple,

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  this idea here is first thing in the morning, five minutes, and then you become unrecognizable in a year. But it'll help you with things that you're dealing with. And here's the thing that everyone could take away, whether you get the book or not. When you, when I was doing research for this book, Limitless, I wrote in six weeks. I don't know, a lot of big bestsellers that were written in less than two months, but this one took, this one took over a year. And so how it happened was, well, I'll tell you, like when my daughter was born, she came early and there was some issues, you know, some things that was going on. And but when I was in the, in the hospital with my daughter and my son, I was looking at them and every morning I write, right? And it's just like a thing I do, like for years, as long as I remember, like gratitude

• 1:14:21Speaker 02

  or like my prayers or just like what I want to focus on that day or whatever. But I started writing to my kids, because I am an older father, you know, my 50s and my kids are very young. And so if I was in, God forbid, I'm not around 20 years from now. If they were going through a hard day as an adult, what would they need to hear from their father to, to get them through it? And I started to write and then the next morning I started to write. And every single day I started to write for a year. And I wrote about things like fear of failure, fear of taking the next step, you know, negative self-talk, not, not feeling good enough, caring about too much about other people's opinions, imposter syndrome, overload, burnout,

• 1:15:02Speaker 02

  you know, everything that, that I dealt with and also clients deal with en masse. And then I didn't, it was thinking maybe a book, it was just going to be for them. And then months go by at a friend, a couple of friends going through bad situations. Like one of them has stage four cancer and so much of it is your mindset, right? And, and I gave him the manuscript, like the, what it was, my notes, and started reading it and just started changing his attitude, right? It was the exact message he said that he needed to hear that morning and it changed everything. So I went back and the biggest question for Limitless was where's the next book? It's like people are asking, how do you live Limitless daily? And I made it into a daily and added the science to why this works. And so it's a very special book that I wrote for my kids, but it's really for them, for us adults.

• 1:15:46Speaker 02

  And but that's the level of just like how you care for your kids, their thoughts, their food, whatever it is, that's how pristine, you know, I want it to be, because it wasn't intended to be in the world. And then so, but the, the, here's the hack for everybody. When you wake up in the morning, you have something called sleep inertia. And sleep inertia is where you go from a sleep state to a waking state. And certain things come online, like when you turn on a computer fresh, right? So your attention comes online, your awareness comes online, your alertness comes online, your working memory is empties, you know, so it's not things competing for your focus and your memory. So what happens is the mental input you decide to put in that window can have a disproportionate effect on the rest of your day.

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  Specifically in the area of your focus, it will influence your focus. What'd you put in first thing in the morning? Your feelings, like your mood, and also how you frame situations throughout the day. Now, this is so big on leverage, because the only thing that's equal for everybody is time. Everyone has different income or network or, you know, like followers or education or whatever. But everybody has 24 hours in a day. This window, when you wake up, is anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes on average, depending on when, what part of your sleep stage you woke up in and your circadian rhythm. But you want to protect that window. But most people put their phone in that window. And what are they, what are they magnifying disproportionately? Yeah, comparison, conflict, like nobody would invite 200 strangers into their bedroom

• 1:17:12Speaker 02

  first thing in the morning to talk about whatever they want to talk about. But that's kind of what we're doing. We wonder why we, how it, how it affects our focus that day. So if you see a bunch of conflict compared to whatever you're going to start seeing that throughout the day, right? You get a message from your boss or a social media comment or whatever, it can affect your mood throughout the day, right? And, you know, you see conflict about this court case that you're talking about. I have no idea what that is, but that'll taint the way you see your relationships and connections throughout the day, right? And so I always say mind before media, right? Set your intention before interruption, right? Set your direction before distraction, you know, so big part. So what I ask people to do in that window is to read Limitless daily, because that will magnify their focus, their success, their, their, their friends of freedom

• 1:17:57Speaker 02

  and feelings and framing. But other ways of using that window, prayer, positive ways, you know, connecting with a loved one. Visualization of what you want to create that day. Like I promise you, if you use part of that window to focus on what you're thankful for, you'll see more blessings throughout the day, 100%, right? But if you focus on like social media and this is what you should fear, and this is what you can't eat, and this is what you can't do about, and there's comparison and blah, then envy, then you're going to magnify envy, you know, feel it and focus on it and all the other things. So, you know, I think the hot, top performers, they, they protect their attention, especially, it's called attentional priming in science, attentional emotional priming, especially first thing in the morning, because when you wake up in the morning,

• 1:18:38Speaker 02

  it's like fresh snow in Maine, like people have run tracks and, and tires and foot, like it's all yours, right? And you can create anything you want until the world gets to you. It's like a clean whiteboard. Nobody's written all their stuff about what they want you to do and hey, should pay attention to this, hey, let me market and sell you this, all that. It's like you could, you have clarity. So, you know, that's why I created this book to be read in that window, five minutes. And then after you start doing that every day, you start reading more and more, which is great exercise for your brain. It's deliberate discomfort, you know, because it's getting something hard done first thing in the morning. And I think it'll make you a better, a better, better man and better human.

• 1:19:18Speaker 00

  Well, Jim, I'm excited to see it all up.

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  Limitlessdaily.com Limitlessdaily.com And we put together a nice bonus on there. It just says, you know, to celebrate the launch, but I want to appreciate, like, say that I really appreciate not only what you do, but the manner you do it. You know, not many people could do this many episodes this consistently, be able to serve into important to a community for so long, you know, and I, so I really, I really, I think that that's, that's a big aspect to what AI won't, can't do, you know, for you building this community, you've earned the trust, you know, because you showed up for people, you created evidence for it, you know, and I feel like AI with all these AI influencers, AI slop, you know, so much things paying for attention, people go to people that have been there, you know, that have shown up for them, that have

• 1:20:04Speaker 02

  served them, you know, and I feel like, um, you know, that's something that, that, that's, it's, it's simply rare.

• 1:20:12Speaker 00

  Well, that means a lot. That means a lot coming from you because I've respected your work for a long time, too. So I appreciate that. Jim, thanks for joining me. I know you had a busy, a busy month, I think you said, so I appreciate you carving out some time for us and being here and very excited to get this into the hands of the guys who listen. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you.

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  Appreciate it. Thanks, everybody.

• 1:20:34Speaker 00

  All right, gentlemen, there you go. Mr. Jim Quick. This guy's phenomenal. I, I, I just, I love his work. I appreciate him. I respect who he is. Uh, he just got off of a long stint of traveling and he still showed up because he committed to showing up and he showed up in a powerful way. So let's support him. And the nice thing is that our interests are aligned. We can support him and the work that he does will support us. If you head to limitlessdaily.com, you can pick up a copy of his book. You can also get those launch bonuses that he put together. And then the last thing, guys, again, check out The War Room, September 9th at 8:00 PM Eastern, The Enforcer, The Rescuer, and The Anchor. Uh, you can do that

• 1:21:17Speaker 00

  at orderofman.com/warroom. All right, you guys, we will be back tomorrow for our Ask Anything. Until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you were meant to be.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  Thank you for listening to the Order of Man Podcast. Are you ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be? We invite you to join the Order at orderofman.com.