If you’re familiar with the film Limitless, you’ll know all about the special pill in the film. The one that costs $600 a pop and lets you become a superhuman for a day.
The pill in the film known as the Limitless pill lets you think faster, clearer, better. It lets you learn physical things like martial arts just by watching films. It lets you remember ANYTHING you’ve ever experienced or seen, even if only for a split second.
TIME SAVER: The closest pill I’ve found to the Limitless pill in real life is this. It’s incredible, and I’ve been using it ever since I discovered it.
What an amazing concept, right?
Well, it’s led to the rise of industries like the nootropics industry, which essentially means ‘brain pills’ or brain boosting supplements. And lots of them do work and I use them myself.
But what I really want to talk about today is how to get the REAL Limitless pill effect from your lifestyle. In the film, Eddie is able to massively change his life in a fairly short space of time. He’s able to massively increase his income, net worth, network, language skills and even his appearance.
He does this all through a series of choices, and the really awesome thing about the film is that ANYTHING he did, ANY of us could also do. If we really tried hard enough, we could learn to trade stocks and shares like he did, to earn lots of money in a short space of time.
We could change our appearance by getting a better haircut, buying a nicer outfit, or even just going to the gym every day.
The reality is slightly stretched when he does things like learning languages in just a few months, but even that is possible and there are people who have done just that. EVERYTHING in the film is POSSIBLE and that’s what inspired so many people.
But the problem is, lots of people are more focused on the practicality of the pill. They’re after the insant fix, the magic pill. Everyone is, because isn’t is easier? Isn’t it more fun and less trouble? Fuck, if there was a real limitless pill that ACTUALLY did all of that, I’d buy it straight away.
But that’s not the point of this post. The point of this is to show you how you can actually do most of that already, just by mastering your mind. Your thoughts and how you conduct yourself every single morning and all day long MAKE you who you are.
Your thoughts eventually MAKE the world around you, and decide the type of life you’ll live. It’s an important thing to remember, and we’ll come back to that later, but for now let’s think about what actually happened in the film.
What happened in Limitless
So the guy (Eddie), a struggling writer, learns about this new magical pill his brother in law has been developing, and decides to give it a try one day. He takes it, and instantly feels clearer, and more awake. He was an alcoholic before, but now he’s clear and doesn’t want to drink as much.
He instantly tidies his apartment and clears his schedule. Then he writes his novel that he’s putting off, and focuses on the story so it’s good. He sits down and just writes it, in a day or so. Hands it in to his agent and it becomes very successful.
Then he moves onto bigger things and learns to trade stocks. Stocks are something that I’ve played with in the past and they have the potential to make (or lose) a large amount of money very rapidly. So Eddie invests and starts learning about how to leverage his money more and make more money faster.
Things take a turn for the worst however, when he needs more money to invest. He asks a drug dealer/gangster type person for some cash to invest and starts using that. The drug dealer eventually gets a taste of what he’s doing and wants to try the pills for himself.
The whole way through the story though, it’s just things that you and me could easily do. Learning to trade stocks, becoming more social, learning a new language and so on. This is all within anyones grasp, but the film makes it look MAGICAL.
I think a lot of that is because it all happens so fast at once. If you suddenly change almost every part of your life, it does feel magical like that. It feels like a massive adventure and you don’t know what’s going to happen next.
Also the more success you find, the easier it is to keep going. It’s known as the Winner effect (Yeah there’s a book, it’s good) and it basically states that the more small consecutive wins you have, the more likely it is you’ll have the confidence to keep going and winning bigger and bigger things. It’s sort of like a domino effect.
The pill in Limitless gave him the confidence and drive to topple the first domino, and get his life together. But now I’d like to look at how we can actually build a life BETTER than Eddies in Limitless, and it’s pretty much free with no side effects.
How to build a Limitless life without the pills
The things you’d actually need to do to build a similar life for yourself aren’t hard, but they will take a bit more time than he had. He made most of his changes within a few months. I’d say to really make these changes it might take you up to a year or so. Still a small price to pay for the dream life, right?
1: Sort your foundations out!
This first step is the only one that needs a solid couple of weeks to sort out properly, and can’t be done along side the other steps. In this section, here’s what you’re going to do. You need to start sleeping well, and at the right times.
This is where you set your alarm to wake you up at 7Am every single morning. Rain or shinge you start getting up at 7, and see what happens. After a few days you’ll start to feel super tired at about 10-11PM at night which is what you want.
This means you’re resetting your sleep cycle and starting to sleep at the right times in sync with the sun and circadian rhythm. That’s massively important for a number of reasons. So sort your sleep out. Next we’re going to tidy the house. Tidy every nook and cranny of where you live, and throw away (or sell) ANYTHING you don’t need or use on a regular basis.
This process not only clears your mind but also frees up space and makes your home more relaxing and nice to be in every night. this is key for the other steps. Now fix your diet.
We know from studies and science that the healthist diet is the vegan one, so try and switch to eating better, even if you can only commit to a month or so. That link goes to my super detailed post about how to go Vegan if you’ve never tried it before!
So now you’ve got a tidy effective apartment or home, a good sleep schedule, and your diet’s fixed and proper. Now start meditating every morning for ten minutes a day. As I said this will take some work, which is why the first section is ENTIRELY based on getting the foundations in place.
Meditating doesn’t have to be difficult, and you can get started for as little as 10 minutes or so a morning. I think this is doable for most of us, even if we lead busy lives. They say that if you don’t have time to meditate, you need it more than almost anyone else, so make time.
You’ve now got the foundations for an awesome life, and if you also cut out watching pointless negative programming (TV) and violent video games, and stop listening to music with negative or violent messages, you’re one step closer to it as well.
2: Build an income (ideally passive)
Now that you’ve got the foundations, you need some MONEY.
This life won’t support itself, but you don’t really want to be trading TIME for MONEY do you? I certainly don’t. It’s far better to build something ONCE and then get paid every single month for life, wouldn’t you agree?
So start learning how to create passive income. Build a website, for example and start building a business online that can give you a passive income. This website is an example of a passive income, because once I’ve written the blog posts and set things up, it makes money for life. I don’t need to do any EXTRA work on it, really.
This means I can spend my time doing the things I love, like traveling!
I think it’s far better to set your life up so that your INCOME is not directly linked to your time. If it is, you’ll never be free, because you can never have enough money. There’s always the chance when you have a job to do overtime, work weekends, and so on. Plus you don’t have the freedom that you do when your income is passive.
3: Increase your confidence
The other thing that Eddie in Limitless did, was just increase his confidence. He grew his network of people and started talking to lots more people. This is a great way of getting to know more people, and also you’ll never know when you might need a favour from that person you met once last year!
In the film he uses some of his new friendships to get a job at a big investment firm just by essentially bluffing his way there and talking to the right people. He got noticed. There was a famous story about an Italian businessman who had earned his millions, and when asked what he’d do if he had to start again, do you know what he said?
He said he’d save up for a nice suit and start talking to people. Every day just talking to people and making a good impression on them. He’d leave them with his number and just network his way to success. I’m not sure how far you can go on JUST networking, but it’s certainly a MASSIVE help.
So learn to increase your confidence, and a great way of doing that is meeting new people, especially while travleling. I’ve met lots of lovely people while traveling and I can now reach out to them in the future if I’m passing through a certain country, or if I need a place to stay! Some of them might even become business partners in the future.
It all starts with just saying Hi, though, so make sure you start flexing that social muscle soon to make it stronger.
4: Learn skills and a language
Now like I said, you can’t go too far just by networking, so you’ll want to start learning some valuable skills. It’s good to have at least one other language and a bunch of valuable skills.
For example I can code, do marketing and things like SEO or advertising, and I can speak Italian and Spanish. I think this has been very valuable for me. If at any point I need it, I can do translation work, consulting, marketing services or even just writing for other websites. You can also make more friends and network more if you speak more than one language.
I chose Italian because I have family there, and Spanish because it’s one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, and I wasn’t ready to learn Chinese yet (very difficult).
So start thinking about what SKILLS you have that you can build into an income or even just leverage to create your ideal life. Are you good at something in particular? Why not teach that thing that you’re good at?
You’ll also be very surprised at actually how little you need in order to be financially free. Most of us only have about $1500 worth of bills and expenses per month. So how easy would it be to cover those if you’re able to charge say $5K a month to ONE CLIENT?
Very easy. Combine that with some investing, savings, and multiple clients and projects and you very quickly become free. You’re then able to hire people to do most of the work for you, and you’re free to do what you want with your time.
And for the most part, your time is the most valuable thing. You need to have time in order to build new projects and ideas. The best thing to do if you have lots of free time is to invest it into building another business, or to travel.
I LOVE traveling so much that whenever I have some spare time (which is a LOT these days) I just travel and explore the world. It’s the most fun I can have, and it’s also something that makes me a better person. I feel more rounded and confident after each trip I go on!
5: Boost your focus and performance
Now that you’ve got the income sorted, the sleep patterns golden and you’re focusing on learning high value skills and things like that, you can focus on adding a bit of focus to your brainpower!
The way you do this is actually sort of up to you. There are lots of things you could do for this, but here are the things I’ve found that works for me.
- Cold showers: I’ve found that having freezing cold showers give you a boost of serotonin and energy in the mornings. It’s great for the evening too becuase your body tries to settle your temperature when you get out of the shower afterwards, so you end up sleeping better as well.
- Drinking enough water: Water is important for almost every single biological process inside your body and brain. Drinking enough is a very easy way of getting yourself to perform at optimal levels, and they say MOST of us are dehydrated at any given time, we just don’t drink until we feel thirsty! Drink more
- Listen to motivational videos: I find that motivation doesn’t really last, so it’s important to listen to things that inspire and motivate you every single day. Try building a collection of the most inspirational things on your laptop or phone and listen to it when you need a motivational boost.
- Surround yourself with good people: Sort of linked to the steps we mentioned earlier, but your circle is really the most important thing in your life and it will really determine your success to a large degree. Surround yourself with positive, inspiring and awesome people.
What is the closest thing to the Limitless pill? (NZT)
Now that you’ve sorted the basics, and you’ve pretty much SMASHED things in your life, and built a solid foundation, you can now think about things like pills and supplements. Now when you start exploring the world of nootropics, you’ll quickly learn a few things.
- Most nootropics don’t work
- The ones that do are expensive
- Most of them contain caffiene which isn’t great long term
And that’s just a sad truth. There are LOTS of nootropics and supplements on places like Amazon which SAY they’re good, and the reviews might look nice but the problem is that when you buy a nootropic pill, you WANT it to work. We want the thins we spend our money on to be worth that money.
And so what you get is a PASSIVE placebo effect. Especially when you’re taking a pill or a supplement, it’s very easy to trick yourself into thinking you’re focusing better, or that you’re thinking has got clearer. It’s easier to do that than to admit that you’ve just wasted your money.
And the placebo effect is a very real, very powerful thing. But I like to go one better than that and find a nootropic that actually works, and is proven to work. So there’s a lot of good marketing for bad products going on in the nootropics space. And that’s fine, but you just have to be aware of it.
I’ve tried dozens of nootropics over the years, and since watching Limitless, I’ve also been looking for a nootropic that would give me that mental edge. That extra little boost that makes what you’re doing that much more effective and easy.
And, I think I’ve finally found it.
I’ve been using Mind Lab Pro for the last few weeks, and I have to say it’s the best nootropic I’ve tried so far. I know there are others out there that do work, but for focus and mental performance, this is the best one I’ve found so far.
I have a full review of Mind Lab Pro, but I should make it very clear that I’ve paid for this with my own money based on my own research, and I’m not being paid to say this. It’s a genuine recommendation because there are SO many reviews of supplements just based on being paid to write the review. This is not one of those times.
It’s the real deal, and I’ve done the research on this. I’ve tried dozens of others, and I think this is probably the closest you can get to the Limitless pill in terms for short term focus. Now I like to COMBINE it with something more long term called CILTEP.
Now, CILTEP is another really interesting one. In the film Limitless, after a while of being on the pill Eddie developed some side effects, but he also changed his brain forever. Right at the end, he’s standing on the side of the road and he basically tells the other guy that he’s managed to permanently change his brainpower with this stuff.
CILTEP does that. It stands for ‘Chemically induced long term potentitation. It essentially aims to permenantly change your brain so that even once you’ve stopped taking it, the effects are still there and you can still focus more than before. So I like to add CILTEP to my stack and use that too.
What should you do?
So long story short, Limitless is very possible and it’s possible to achieve a life and results like that. It’s also not as easy as it seems in the film, and it probably WILL take you a bit longer than just a few weeks. That being said, it’s possible for you.
If you want a little boost then consider looking at a nootropic like Mind Lab Pro or something like CILTEP for long term benefits as well. Those two combined are probably the closest you an get to the real deal and the Limitless pill.