Book SummaryLimitless, by Jim Kwik

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Limitless

Limitless by Jim Kwik is a self-help book that discusses meta-learning—that is, learning how to learn. In this book, Kwik teaches us how to quickly and effectively learn about any topic and then how to use that new knowledge to its maximum potential.

Kwik’s lessons are based on his own experiences. He suffered a traumatic brain injury at a young age, and from then on he struggled in school. When he went to college, Kwik realized that if he could learn how his own mind worked, he’d be able to learn and use his knowledge more effectively. Today, Kwik is a teacher, life coach, and motivational speaker. He credits his success to his ongoing studies of meta-learning, and he hopes to share what he’s learned through...

Limitless Summary We Must Learn How to Learn

Most people put artificial limits on their learning: For example, they might think they’re too stupid to learn something, or too old to learn new skills, or just not good at a particular subject.

Kwik designed the Limitless model to eliminate those limits. It teaches you how to get into an ideal frame of mind for learning, and then use simple, practical techniques to learn and retain new information.

The Limitless Model

Kwik’s model of limitless learning is based on three components:

1. Mindframe: This is about truly believing you have the limitless potential that Kwik discusses, as well as putting yourself into an open and productive frame of mind. In other words: You must believe that you can learn, and you must be ready to learn.
2. Drive: Even once you know that you can learn anything in the world, you won’t learn something that doesn’t interest you. Thus, you need to find ways to motivate and convince yourself to put your limitless potential to work.
3. Techniques: These are the practices and strategies you’ll use to learn new information quickly, and...

Limitless Summary The First Component: Mindframe

Mindframe is the first part of Kwik’s limitless model. Your mindframe is made up of your attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs, and it heavily influences how you interpret and respond to situations. Nobody’s born with a mindframe; you learned yours from the people around you and the culture you grew up in.

Kwik says that many people learned limiting mindframes when they were young. As children, we were all reliant on the adults around us for everything from comfort, to food, to emotional support. Therefore, we learned that we weren’t able to do most things for ourselves—and, unfortunately, many of us never fully moved past that limiting belief.

Psychology calls this self-limiting mindframe learned helplessness. Kwik prefers to call it a LIE—Limited Idea Entertained.

In Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins suggests beginning to break the pattern of learned helplessness with a two-step process:

• Identify a problem (large or small) that you can fix.

• Fix it.

It sounds simplistic, but the act of consciously recognizing and fixing a problem will begin to show you that...

Limitless Summary The Second Component: Drive

Kwik says that, with a limitless mindframe, you understand that you can accomplish more than you ever thought was possible. However, knowing that you can do incredible things is only the first step; the next is to figure out what you want to do. In other words, you have to find your motivation.

According to Kwik, knowing what motivates you is a matter of identifying four things:

1. Your purpose: What you do. In other words, what are your goals in life, and how will you work toward them?

In The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin Sharma suggests finding your purpose by keeping a Dream Book:

• Write down goals from all different areas of your life (health goals, relationship goals, career goals, and so on). Keep the goals separated by category.

• Also include pictures that represent your goals, or pictures of people who have reached those goals. For example, if your goal is to lose weight, perhaps include a picture of an athlete or model.

• Periodically look through your Dream Book. Ask yourself which types of goals you're excited to work toward, and which seem to come...

Limitless Summary The Third Component: Techniques

So far we’ve discussed getting yourself into the proper mindframe to learn and work, and getting yourself motivated to do so. However, Kwik insists, those two things won’t get you very far without the third learning component: Technique.

You could think of it this way:

• Mindframe is the what: “What am I capable of?”
• Drive is the why: “Why do I want to do these things?”
• Technique is the how: “How can I actually accomplish this?”

Learn How to Study

The first strategy Kwik presents is a series of steps that prepare you to learn and maximize your retention.

There are six steps to Kwik’s strategy:

1. Clear your mind. There are three things you must let go of in order to fully focus on the topic at hand: What you think you know about that topic, anything unrelated to what you’re studying—including upcoming obligations or concerns that might distract you—and your own perceived limitations.

(Shortform note: Kwik’s advice to clear your mind strongly resembles the old Zen proverb of the empty cup: Just as you can’t add tea to a cup that’s already full, you can’t add new information to a mind that’s already full of old ideas. Therefore, forgetting what...

Limitless Summary Limitless Thinking

Finally, Kwik shifts from discussing how to learn to discussing how to think. Now that you’re capable of learning anything, the next step is using all of your new knowledge to its maximum potential.

In other words, in this final section, Kwik teaches you how to move from limitless learning to limitless action.

Think Exponentially

Kwik urges us to stop thinking incrementally (one small step at a time) and start thinking exponentially (each step bigger than the one before it). According to Kwik, exponential thinking leads to world-changing innovations and billion-dollar companies.

Entrepreneur Mark Bonchek first wrote about developing an exponential mindset to complement the exponential growth of technology. The crux of his argument was that many businesses fail because they have incremental mindsets in an exponentially advancing world. Bonchek encourages business leaders to make strategies that grow slowly at first, but lead to ever-accelerating rates of return.

However, Bonchek’s method claims that you can’t predict the future while using an exponential mindset—he likens an...

Shortform Exercise: Unlimit Yourself

According to Kwik, becoming limitless starts with your mindframe—you have to overcome your self-limiting beliefs.

What’s one self-limiting belief that you have? For example, if you think that you’re not good at math, or art, or that you’re socially awkward, those are all self-limiting beliefs.