Learning to Be Limitless: Review of 5-Day Kwik Reading Challenge

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Welcome to my Reading Tuesday’s B.R.E.A.T.H.S. blog. This past month, I dove into Jim Kwik’s “Limitless” book and unofficial workbook by Intensive Life Publishing, “Workbook for Jim Kwik’s Limitless.” 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. After deep diving into the “Limitless” book, I shared my book review and also the review of the workbook. Last week, I reviewed Jim’s 10-Day Kwik Start Plan in the back of the “Limitless” book. This final week in June, I am reviewing the 5-Day Kwik Reading Challenge Jim had back in May to celebrate the book’s one year anniversary.

5-Day Kwik Reading Challenge

To celebrate the one year release date and ultimate success of his first book, “Limitless,” Jim Kwik hosted an hour-long presentation for five consecutive days to engage with his readers and help propel them further on their limitless journeys. I was excited to see and hear Jim talk about his book as it has been a big influence in my life this last year. Below I will review each of the 5-Day Warm-ups and the 5 daily challenges with my typed “taking limitless notes” from his lessons and handwritten/hand drawn “making limitless notes,” that help me to relate and remember the information better. 

Kwik Warm-Ups

• Warm-Up 1: Read a book a week, that’s 52 a year, imagine how your mind would be different.
• Warm-Up 2: Stay consistent, start with 20 pages a day and build from there
• Warm-Up 3: Build comprehension, take notes and make notes (see examples below)
• Warm-Up 4: Take brain breaks, time box your reading and take breaks in between (I use Esington glass timers, 25 min productivity, 5 min break)

5 Daily Kwik Challenges

Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 1: THE SPEED 

Little by little, a little becomes a lot

Limitless Model 3-M’s (LIE – limited idea entertained)

1. Mindset
2. Methods
3. Motivation
   1. Inspiration
   2. Ideation
   3. Implementation
4. Integration = Limitless

What is my new read speed this week? 25 lines, 14 words = 350 wpm

Four reasons why we don’t read fast

1. Education
2. Focus
3. Subvocalization
4. Regression

Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 2: COMPREHENSION 

3 R’s for comprehension

1. READ-to comprehend
2. RITE-notes (right side/capture/note taking/strategies, left side/create/note making/impressions of what i am capturing)
3. RELATE-talk about what you just read-the explanation effect, you learn it twice when you explain it.

Watch Yourself

Words

Actions

Character

Habits

Life is Birth to Choice to Death (Life = B to C to D)

The most important thing, is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing

The problem is not enough time, its not the right priority

Be kind to myself

Reading is to your mind as exercise is to your body

Mastery of transferring knowledge

Knowledge is not power, it is potential power

All behavior is belief driven

Faster readers have better focus

Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 3: CONCENTRATION

Read nonfiction during day and fiction at night

Learn, earn, return

Focus is a verb not a noun

Transcending (ending the trance) 

Not things you have, you do (I don’t have energy, I don’t have money, I don’t have focus)

When Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTS) 

Leaders are readers

Don’t look at your phone for the first 30 minutes. Peace of mind, productivity, 

1-Rewires brain for distraction

Lose-Time, mistakes, energy

2-Rewires day for reaction

Brush teeth with opposite hand (focused and uses other side of brain), be present and focused in the morning

You inbox is an convenient organizational system for other people’s agenda

Learning and relationships are infinite games

Dopamine detox – take time to disconnect to reconnect

Meditate 2x a day for 20 minutes to reset

RAS – reticular activating system, directs focus, EQ emotional intelligence, reading fiction

Habit design, make things good for me easy, and things bad for me hard

EX: put book instead of phone by my bed

FOCUS = Fixed Ongoing Concentration Until Successful

The person that falls the most, has the most strength 

Mistakes are good, but OLD

Own (don’t blame or complain) You can not be upset from the results from the work not done

Learn  – no failure, just failure to learn, if failure is not an option, than neither is success

Don’t repeat mistakes

Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 4: RETENTION

Space between the ears

MEMORY 80% 

How to remember what you read

Easy as P.I.E.

Place-location (remember where people are sitting, where do I know this person)

Imagine-imagination (visualization, better visual memory, remember face over name)

Entwine-association (what does it sound like or remind me of)

What I hear I forget, what I see I remember, what I do I understand

Practice makes progress

Brain works 3 ways:

1. Encoding
2. Storing
3. Retrieving

No such thing as a good or bad memory, there’s a trained brain and an untrained brain

1. Top
2. Nose
3. Mouth
4. Ears
5. Throat
6. Shourders
7. Collar
8. Fingers
9. Belly
10. Seat

7-Principles to influence: combined with top ten (once you know, you remember)

1. Reciprocity-what does it look like? What sounds like it (Recipe city)
2. Commitment-ring (nose ring)
3. Social proof- (talking evidence)
4. Liking-(dog licking ears)
5. Authority-judge speaks law
6. Scarcity-scary shoulders
7. Unity-you knitting

Exercise my brain:

Read

Focus

Brain food

Meditation

Together everyone achieves more (magic)

Taking Limitless Notes – Challenge Day 5: MOTIVATION

Reading 20 pages a day

Introvert has 5 gold coins, Extrovert always looking for coins (ambivert, likes to socialize and be expressive, but needs to recover alone)

Hero’s Journey – Three M’s 

Methods the last four days

Mindset and Motivation (motive for taking action) 

Stop listening to L.I.E.s

Limited

Ideas

Entertained

Active retrieval, we learn by putting in and pulling out

Genius is built, discipline, determination, and practice (its not born)

Growth Mindset

M-I can learn from my Mistakes

I-I can Improve by working hard

N-I will Never give up

D-I am determined to do my best

S-Self Reflection will help me succeed

E-I can overcome challenges with Effort

T-I can Train my brain

STOP caring what others think, overthinking, complaining, comparing, condemning, criticizing, gossip, procrastinating, expectations, obligations,  

Belief that I am capable and I do have potential, If you fight for your limits you get to keep them

Motivation = gas/fuel = what drives me

3-keys to Motivation, formula PxExS(3), thought experiment, 

Reasons reap results and rewards

1-Head, 2-Heart, 3-Hands

• P=Purpose (who’s counting on me to show up)
• E=Energy (You do not have energy, you do energy) Priority management, 
  • progress not perfect
  • Food, thoughts, movement, supplements, 
• S(3) = Small Simple Steps
  • Opening book, reading one line, reading page
  • Little by little, a little becomes a lot

Kwik Challenge Conclusion

Throughout the five days, Jim Kwik asked us to take some snapshots of our progress and share it on social media with the incentive of winning a Kwik Brain Box. I REALLY wanted that box for several reasons, 1. Signed hardcopy of “Limitless”, 2. Other brain goodies, and 3. My name has the word brain in it, so I love everything about the brain. I snapped pics to share on Instagram and on the Kwik Brain app. On the fifth day, I received a message from admin in the Kwik Brain app that I was one of the Brain Box winners! I was so excited I recorded myself opening the Brain Box. The 5-Day Challenge along with the 10-day Kwik Start Plan got me well enough started on my limitless journey. However, I still craved some more direction and decided to purchase Jim’s 21-Day Kwik Reading program so that I could improve upon my speed reading skills to help me research more efficiently. I will be completing that program during the month of July and reporting back here with the review in August. 

Thank you for reading and following along on my limitless journey,

Dr. Jaime Brainerd, Ed.D.