In Los Angeles, everything needs a guru.

Your abs need Cardio Barre, your soul needs kabbalah or

perhaps Scientology, and your brain? Well, your brain is what Jim Kwik is after.

The 42-year-old seems like the world’s next great cult king when he says to me in a near whisper, “I want
to reach 1 billion minds.” But of course he wouldn’t pitch it that way. Kwik is a popular new “memory
coach” and the proprieter of Kwik Learning and SuperheroYou, companies that offer Web products,
seminars and one-on-one coaching purporting to make you a better reader and to “improve your overall
brain function.” Kwik’s corporate and personal clients use his techniques to improve reading speed and
retention, handy skills when you’re memorizing scripts or building a space program. He has up to
150,000 subscribers a month, he says, through a combination of Web services, seminars and in-person
coaching, and his company has grown into a multimillion-dollar operation with half a dozen full-time
employees and several part-time consultants.

Customers using one of Kwik’s two-hour webinars surf through speed-reading exercises, learn how to
use dreams to enhance the creative process through journaling, and practice visualization exercises
designed to help them understand how they store memories. “Honestly, [I] didn’t know if this was going
to be a waste of my time,” says Alana Gold, a marketing professional and mother of two who is
cramming in extra hours of studying before heading to graduate school. “He has me doing things like
juggling and tracing my fingers across my field of vision in a figure eight before studying.” (She claims it
helps.) Kwik’s approach has won the endorsement of other brain gurus, including Dr. Daniel Amen, a
favorite of pastor Rick Warren and a best-selling author.

It’s a ripe time for the Kwiks of the world to sell to the Golds of the world. Self-help is a $10 billion
industry. People are hungry to form new habits; it’s the age of behavioral psychology meets the
productivity zeitgeist, and whether your techniques are peer-reviewed or merely placebo, they’re
certainly sellable. (Amen’s take on what counts as “tested”: “The best way to evaluate these techniques
is to try simple things and measure where you notice improvement.”) Kwik often fields personal
questions from his audiences, offering what he calls a “personal trainer for your brain.” Soft-spoken and
geeky, he conducts his webinars in front of a giant Iron Man mural while wearing a T-shirt with a picture
of a brain over the tagline, “There is no app for that.” His online classes and seminars run around $400;
some clients pay upward of $10,000 per person for in-person coaching, either one-o