Tuesday, June 8, 2021
Welcome to my Reading Tuesday’s B.R.E.A.T.H.S. blog. The last few weeks I reviewed Jim Kwik’s “Limitless” book using an unofficial workbook. The workbook is written in four parts, so I covered one part each week the last four weeks giving my personal insights on becoming limitless by reflecting, setting goals, and taking action. Jim’s #1 message that came through to me while I first listened to his book was to teach what I learn and that is what I am here to do with this blog. This week, after deep diving into the book, I am going to share my official review of, “Limitless,” by Jim Kwik.
Introduction to “Limitless”
Jim Kwik was born with his namesake that will help others quicken their reading skills, which in turn will help people to upgrade their brains to learn anything faster and improve in all areas to have an exceptional life. Jim starts off by explaining his brain injuries as a child and how they labeled him as broken. With his insatiable curiosity for learning, he began a journey to find out how a boy with a broken brain can learn. The first part of the book is called, “Free Your Mind: Call to Adventure.”
Part one describes how one can become limitless by recognizing digital villains. He also describes the limitless brain and how to read and remember any book. This is the part he explains, “The Limitless Model,” which is a Venn Diagram of Three M’s: mindset, methods, and motivation, and Three I’s intersecting: ideation, inspiration, and implementation. We can be limitless when all of the components are linked together. Jim explains why this is important to understand now due to digital overload on our brains. He provides a free 10 day plan at the end of the book and also on the book’s website to jumpstart our progress. In parts two through four of “Limitless”, Kwik zooms in on the Three M’s.
For part two of the “Limitless” book, “Limitless Mindset Initiation,” Jim dispels the seven L.I.E.s (limited ideas entertained) of learning (again, the following are all false ideas regarding knowledge):
- Intelligence is fixed
- We only use 10% of our brains
- Mistakes are failures
- Knowledge is power
- Learning new things is difficult
- The criticism of other people matters
- Genius is born, not made
Kwik details the opposite to be true of all the seven LIEs, then moves into Part 3, “Limitless Motivation Revelation,” where he loads on the acronyms to help us better remember our “WHY” or purpose with S.M.A.R.T. goals that fit with our emotions in H.E.A.R.T goals. He also reflects on our energy, what foods we put into our bodies, the amount of exercise we get, and how we are sleeping. He explains how small simple steps lead to progress and uses the acronym W.I.N. for creating new positive habits. He finishes off part three by discussing strategies on how to get into the flow and conquering the enemies that slow our flow down.
Part four of the “Limitless” book is on “Limitless Methods Transformation.” Here Kwik details how to focus better by calming the mind, breathwork, and making time for distractions. Jim reviews how old methods of Rote memorization are not only outdated but don’t work. In order to be limitless, Jim explains how to study better by employing active recall with help from the Pomodoro Technique, using senses of smell and hearing to increase recall, listening with the whole brain using the H.E.A.R. acronym, and the T.I.P acronym for upgrading to limitless notetaking skills. Wrapping up part four, Kwik gives insight on improving memory with visualization, association, emotion, and location with the help of M.O.M. acronym.
The final part five of the book is, “Limitless You: The Reward & Return,” which covers speed reading and thinking. With speed reading, Jim suggests giving your reading the finger by using it as a visual pacer to follow along, and explains if you were speeding in a car, you are more focused at driving, same goes for reading. Kwik explains the seven thinking hats that we can wear while we are reading and suggests that we also have eight different learning styles to pick up information. He wraps up the book by providing some of his favorite mental models we can use to make sense of our thinking.
Highlights of “Limitless”
Jim Kwik uses his heroes journey to detail steps so that we can create our own journey. Using a combination of his own stories and stories of people he has worked with, Jim helps readers get to a whole new level than they were before they started reading the book. With the help of alliterations, acronyms, visual models, and repetition, his book has a way of making the information stick. Another component of “Limitless” that was helpful were the spaces to take extra notes throughout the book, and at the end of each chapter there’s a “before we move on” section which gives the reader a chance to think about what they just read before they dive into the next chapter. Reading this book made me want to be a limitless person.
Conclusion of “Limitless”
Jim Kwik was on a mission to share what he has learned over the years about dispelling limiting beliefs about education and how we all have the ability to increase our potential. “Limitless” provides us with a variety of strategies to start mastering our habits, using productivity tools to get rid of our supervillains, finding our purpose that will lead us to our passion, and sharpening our focus so that we can upgrade our brains to read faster, comprehend more, and improve our memory recall. Once you are done reading the book, there are even more resources at the end to get you started on your limitless journey.
Rating of “Limitless” – 5 Stars
⭑ Motivating
⭑ Engaging
⭑ Inspiring
⭑ Unlimiting
⭑ Stimulating
Continuing to Be Limitless
My biggest “why” for reading this book was so that I can learn to read faster, which will help me research more, and I can learn how to get more things accomplished that I have always thought to be too difficult. I can’t think of another nonfiction book that has me more motivated, engaged, inspired, unlimited, and stimulated, hence the five star rating. Because of this book “Limitless,” I have been blogging once a week about it in my Reading Tuesday’s B.R.E.A.T.H.S. with the aid of an unofficial workbook, which I will review next week. To be around several like-minded people who have completed the “Limitless” book, I have joined the Kwik Brain Podcast “Limitless Community” on Facebook. To be a part of a smaller community who meet weekly to talk about the “Limitless” book and other great books, I joined a private Facebook group called, “Limitless Lives.”
As I mentioned my “why” is to read faster, I have paid for and joined Jim’s 21 day Speed Reading course, which I will get into next month after I have completed the program. I have downloaded the Kwik Brain app to locate my lessons, discover other skills, interact with other Kwik learners, and share my progress. For more information, you can visit Kwik Universe at his website where Jim Kwik talks about his book, podcast, coaching, memory training, and where he offers multiple online courses such as:
That wraps up my review for Jim Kwik’s book, “Limitless.” I hope that you have enjoyed reading about it and are inspired to dive into it to find your “why,” and how you can upgrade your brain, read faster, comprehend more, and improve memory recall. Best of luck on your limitless journey.
Dr. Jaime Brainerd, Ed.D.
I have this book. You’ve inspired me to read it!!
Sounds like an interesting book. I can speed read fairly well but might need a refresher course.
So glad he saw past the label they tried to put on him when he was young! As with rote memorization- that is why many homeschool. Regular schooling is still using old methods of learning and not taking advantage of all the senses and learn the way that is best.