The amount of information that's been created from the dawn of humanity,
since human beings walked the earth to the year 2003,
which is only about a decade and a half ago,
that amount of information is now created every two days.
48 hours online, think about the blogs, the podcasts, the social media, that much content.
Our brain, they say we use such a small potential of it,
we use all our brain, but some people use it more efficiently than other people.
When people see me on stage, they'll see me have 100 people stand
up and I'll memorise all their names as they introduce themselves
or 100 words or 100 numbers that they gave me forwards and backwards.
And here's the thing, I always tell people I don't do this to impress you,
I do this to express to you what's really possible,
because the truth is every single person that's listening and watching this can do that
and a lot more. The thing is we weren't taught.
If anything, we were taught a lie,
that somehow our capabilities, our potential, our memory, for instance,
our learning abilities or intelligence is somehow fixed like our shoe size.
And it's absolutely not true. We've discovered more about
the human brain in the past 20 years than the previous 2000 years combined.
And what we found is we see us underestimating our own potential, our own capabilities.
And that's a thing, just cause we weren't taught. And I really think the nature of
the work that you do, that I do, that our community is really backing,
is about transcending. It's about ending the trance.
Transcend. End the trance. Ending this mass hypnosis, in media,
in marketing, that's telling us that we're broken. That we need to be fixed. That we're not enough.
And I feel like that is what's holding us back. The amount of information that's been created
from the dawn of humanity, since human beings
walked the earth to the year 2003, which is only about a decade and a half ago,
that amount of information is now created every two days.
48 hours online, think about the blogs, the podcasts, the social media, that much content.
Our brain, they say we use such a small potential of it,
we use all our brain, but some people use it more efficiently than other people.
People don't realise this, there's a learning curve, but there's also a forgetting curve.
Science is saying that within two days, just 48 hours of listening to a podcast,
reading a book, going to a conference, getting a coaching,
80% of it, up to 80% is lost. And that's, as somebody who is investing time,
energy, treasure into something, to lose all that, so you wanna be
able to hold that on. And so, one of the
ways of doing it is by taking notes. And we did a whole episode on proper note-taking
and really one that's more brain-friendly. Most people, and what they found is
the worst way of taking notes actually is verbatim.
And they study this at universities, because they test people,
that people take word for word, and one of the reasons why
is because there's just so much information. That you have 18 pages of word for word,
you don't even know what's most important. But they found the best way of actually taking
notes were more on keywords and relevancy. So for example, one of the ways of
taking notes that I recommend is taking a piece of paper and
putting a line straight down the page. And on the left side what I'm doing
is I'm capturing information. Capturing. So we can talk about how to remember names
and how to read faster and how to learn skills faster, how to change your habits,
that would be on that left-hand part, you're capturing information.
But on the right side, instead of capturing, you're creating.
What does that mean? It means that you're writing,
you're creating and you're building on this. You're putting your impression.
So essentially, on the left side, you're taking notes,
but on the right side, you're making notes. And there's a clear distinction
between just capturing information and actually the creative process.
It matters because, if you're first of all, for focus.
A lot of people, when they're listening to something, their mind will go somewhere else,
they'll get distracted. So here, instead of it going somewhere else,
it goes on the right side of the page. Let's say left side, right brain,
left brain, right brain. Left brain's more logical
and words and language and linear. But on the right side is your
imagination, it's your creativity. So, your creativity can go there. T
he other thing is it forces you to ask questions. I believe that questions are the answer.
I think it's essential for understanding, for critical thinking, for focus, for learning,
if you ever wanna read something and you... Let's say people feel absent-minded.
They forget where they put things. Their wallet, their purse, their keys,
or not their keys, something larger like their car,
you see the people and they're finding, they forget where they parked their car,
they read a page in the book at the end and they forget what they just read,
they'll get a name from somebody and they'll just forget it right away,
one of the ways to insulate that is to ask questions.
To ask questions about something. So for example,
when I'm taking notes, I'll capture information on the left side,
but on the right side, I'll write questions I have about what I'm learning.
I'll ask myself questions like how I'm gonna apply it.
The biggest challenge I have with the self-help, personal development industry
is that there's this massive lie that's being spread saying that knowledge is power.
And even the greatest minds out there, they journal, they're always creative.
You think about Leonardo DaVince or Marie Curie, like they had
their journals, they're worth fortunes. And it's interesting asking this question,
is it because they were geniuses,
and when I say genius I don't mean IQ, I mean they're exceptional in their field,
whether it's sports, whether it's technology, finance,
relationships, interpersonal skills, interpersonal communication,
is it because they're geniuses that they're taking all these notes
or is it because they're creating all these notes that make them geniuses, right?