How to be More Productive at Work and Limitless outside Work.

In the movie Limitless, the fictional character Eddie Maura is introduced to a wonderful pill called NZT (a clear pill). With a single tablet daily, what he could do was limitless. He learnt to play the piano in three days, Math became very easy, he learnt other languages really fast and he could remember all he had ever seen or hear. Overnight he became a master communicator, mathematician, a wealthy and powerful businessman. I’m sure when most of us watched the movie, we might have thought; “Only if this drug exists, I will take it”.

One thing is sure; you don’t have to take NZT to be limitless. By following these few steps you too can be  more productive and limitless in whatever you do. I’m not saying that after you follow these steps you’ll become limitless instantly and start working and reading like crazy; No you won’t but in a few months to several years depending upon your learning style and aptitude for personal development, you could become surprisingly close to Eddie Maura by focusing on improvements in some areas of your life. Get ready to hack your reality and become limitless.

Mastery of Communication Skills

Communication skills are huge factors of our success, whether it’s in business or relationships. Yet we spend little time developing them. Excellent communicators consistently end up in places of high authority and power. A good example is U.S President Barack Obama – this man can convince you to buy something you will never use. Yet in the movies it’s because of Eddie’s communication skills that open lots of doors for him. A few things you can start doing today are:

·        Improve on your listening skills

·        Smile more often.

·        Remember peoples name and call them by their name at least 3 times during communication.

·        Study a book that focuses on NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming).

·        Practice topic depth escalation and magnanimous conversation stealing.

Influence Abilities

Anyone seeking a limitless lifestyle will need to develop very sharp influence skills. You can get anything you want in the world if only you know how to ask. Again find a book that teaches on Neuro-linguistic Programming and read it. Also you should learn these things:

·        Embedded commands.

·        Negotiating skills.

·        Rapport building

·        Playing the young and ambitious card.

Also remember to use peoples name more frequently during conversations, about 3-5 minutes or a often as you can without it being obvious you are name pumping. Using someone name while talking to the person captures their attention and increases the chances of them going with what you are suggestion.

Be more social. Make new friends

At every opportunity, try to move out of your comfort zone and whatever happens when you do, make sure you “Go with the flow”. Try to do things you’ve never done.

Move around, interact, be socially free and authentic; realize people don’t really care about what you do. Increase your self-confidence; the more confident you become, the less you care so much what other people may think.

Smile more often. Be interested, open and curious, you can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Focus on what you can control.

Knowledge and Skill acquisition

Limitless individuals have an internalized understanding of information equity and knowledgeable about a wide variety of fascinating topics. At the same time though they are able to subtly guide a conversation towards topics that they have a mastery of. A Limitless individual wouldn’t waste their time taking irrelevant classes; they would consume information and acquire knowledge in the more efficient ways like listening to audio books, podcasts, video tutorials and documentary films. Practice skill leverage; as opposed becoming a professional student who is always filling their head with new skills, learn the skill of leveraging the skills and strengths of others to accomplish your goals. Increase your ability to learn.

Dress sharp

In the beginning of the movie limitless, Eddie look poor and wretched, his clothes were not fitted, his hair wasn’t well groomed and to top it, he was a smoker. While on NZT; Eddie looked sharp, well dressed and groomed. So you too should make sure you look good at all times if you want to influence people. Nobody wants to take orders from a wretched person. One thing you should never forget is: Dress the way you want to feel and not the way you feel. This is true especially if you want to make an impression. Don’t underestimate the empowering effect (especially for men) on your own mindset and over other people of dressing well. Regardless of how non-judgmental people claim to be the, way we dress when we meet people makes a big difference. People in suits and uniforms will always be figures of authority and command respect. Swag is for boys while Class is for men.

Cognitive Ability Development and Improved Memory

In the movie limitless there’s a part where Eddie Maura says “Everything I’ve ever heard, read or seen was now organized and available; here it is, here you go. You cannot be a limitless individual if you keep forgetting things. In Napoleon Hill’s Think & Grow Rich he lists memory improvement as one of the things that helps contribute to a person’s success in life. An individual seeking a Limitless memory would want to focus on the following:

•      Visual based associations: It’s said that association is the basis of memory; memory experts utilize visual association techniques heavily to improve recall abilities.

•      The ability to remember names & details about people.

•      Spend time playing memory and cognition games.

Cognition is the logical, reasoning faculty of the mind. This is the domain of mathematics and pattern recognition. The most important thing to understand is that your brain is like any other muscle in your body; it gets more powerful as you exercise it. Have you ever wondered why you keep repeating the same patterns in life?  It’s because our brains prefers to process new situations using existing synaptic patters (formed by your past experiences). If you want to experience new things in life you need to give you brain practice by building new synaptic patterns. Some ways to sharpen the brain include:

•      Try new things. If you are right-handed, start using your left hand to control your mouse and brush your teeth, if you are left-handed, start using your right hand to brush your teeth and control your mouse.

•      Be a content creator instead of a content consumer.

•      Do some logic puzzles.

•      Learn a new language. Language acquisition challenges and causes cognitive development on a variety of conscious and unconscious levels. When you start learning a new language practice talking to yourself in your mind in that language.

Stress Management and Enhanced Situational Awareness

Mismanagement or excessive amounts of stress will definitely prevent you from living a limitless life. Stress is defined as the measure of change occurring in your life at any given time. Things like a new job, moving, breaking up with a partner, not enough sleep etc. Make sure you are spending time daily on healthy stress management activities:

•      Working out.

•      Eating complete meals (Balanced diet).

•      Physical contact with other people (Massage).

•      Relaxation time and sleep.

On NZT Eddie has a Jason Bourne situational awareness for diffusing and resolving dangerous situations. Here’s some real life ways to increase situation awareness:

•      Survival and fire arms training courses

•      Martial arts training

•      Sensory acuity exercises

When watching a movie put the volume on mute and try to diffuse what the characters are saying.

Well There you have it folks, I hope you learnt something don’t forget to follow me on twitter @hobyner. Thank you.