7 Keys to Change Your Destiny ❤️

I am so stupid. Why am I so broken? This was my story growing up. How many of you believe that the words you say to yourself affect your life? And yeah, and even just out in the lobby, somebody came to me and said, I know you're a memory coach. I'm getting too old. I have a horrible memory. And I always say the same thing, stop. If you fight for your limitations, You get to keep them, right? If you fight for your limits, they're yours. I'm gonna share with you 3 quick stories having to do with stories and destiny and some things that I did to be able to rewrite and change my story. When I was 5 years old, I was in kindergarten class. I was standing on a chair. I lost my balance and my head crashed on the windowsill. I ricocheted from there onto the radiator, the heater, and I woke up in the hospital in the emergency room, and blood bruised everywhere. And where it really showed up was in school. I had poor focus, poor memory. I had migraines every day as a 5-year-old. A couple years later, I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's when I was 7. When I was 9 years old, I was slowing down in class, and I was being teased pretty harshly because I just didn't understand the lessons. 'Cause it took me 3 years longer to learn how to read than all the other kids. So, a lot of self-doubt, a lot of self-esteem issues. But when I was being teased in class, a teacher came to my defense. She pointed to me and said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. And how many of you, you know, how many adults here? Adults have to be very careful of their external words 'cause they often become a child's internal words. Right? So every single time I did badly in school, which was all the time, I would say, oh, because I'm the broken— I have the broken brain. That was my story. And I struggled every single day. And when I was 18, I was lucky enough to get into a local university, and I thought I could start a new chapter of my story, right? I took all these classes. I thought freshman meant I could make a fresh start, and I did way worse, if that's even possible. And I— thought I should quit because I didn't have the money. You know, my parents immigrated to the United States. We lived in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at. You know, money wasn't readily available, and I didn't know how to tell my parents I was going to quit school. I'm the oldest of 3 siblings, and a friend said, hey, before you make this big announcement, why don't you come home with me this weekend, visit my folks, and get some perspective? And I think perspectives help give us another point of view for our stories. And so I go, and the family's pretty well off, beautiful home on the water, and the father walks me around his property before dinner and asks me a very innocent question. He says, Jim, how's school? And this is the worst question you could ask me at this time, and I start— I'm very introverted, painfully shy. I start bawling, crying in front of this complete stranger because I just have so much angst and upset, pressure. And I tell him my whole story about being broken, not good at school, it's not for me, I'm going to quit, don't know how to tell my parents. And very smart man, this mentor of mine, he asked me another question. And I think questions are the answer. You ask a new question, you get different answers. He asked, Jim, well, why are you in school? And I didn't have an answer. Nobody's ever asked. I thought that's just what you do, right? And he's like, well, what do you want to be? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? What do you want to contribute with the world? I had no idea. And he forces me to write down the answers, right, of be, do, have, share. And he takes out a piece of paper, and I write them down. And then when I'm done, I fold up the paper to put it in my pocket, thinking the exercise is done. He grabs it right out of my hand, and he starts looking at it. Now, I'm an 18-year-old, very insecure kid, and obviously this person is doing pretty well for himself. And again, like what Gio said, I'm afraid of being judged. Right? And I feel like we do know what our passions are and even our purpose, but sometimes it's sedated under other people's opinions and their expectations, right? And so he starts reading it and he looks up and says, Jim, you are this close to everything on that list. And I'm thinking, no way. Give me 10 lifetimes, I'm not going to crack that list. I'm fighting for my limitations. And he takes his fingers and then he goes like this. Meaning what's in between is like the key. And he takes me into a room of his home I've never seen before. It is wall to wall, ceiling to floor covered in books. Now, I hate books. I've never read a book. It's like I'm very intimidated by books. It's like being in a room full of snakes. But what makes it worse is he starts going to shelves and pulling snakes off the shelf and handing them to me. And I look at the titles and they're these Very early personal growth books, Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking, Napoleon Hill, and biographies, like literally stories of these amazing women and men throughout history. And he says, Jim, I want you to read one book a week. And I'm thinking, there's just no way. And I can't do that. I have schoolwork. And I said, schoolwork? And he says, Jim, don't let school get in the way of your education. You know, the Mark Twain— it's a Mark Twain quote. I didn't know that at the time, but it's like, I really can't do it. I'm sorry. If I commit to it, I, you know, not possible. And he takes out my bucket list, my dream list, and he starts reading every single thing out loud. And something about hearing your goals, your fantasies, your dreams kind of incanted by a stranger out in the ether, it's like, oh, my God. It messed with my mind and my heart something fierce. And honestly, a lot of things on there were things I wanted to do for my parents, things they could never afford, or even if they could, they wouldn't do for themselves. So, with that leverage, I think you need reasons to get results. I agreed to read. And so, I'm back at school, a pile of books I have to read, a pile of books I want to read, and I can't get through pile A. So, what do I do? I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't exercise, I don't socialize. For weeks and weeks. And one night, late night, I pass out at 2 o'clock in the morning, fall down a flight of stairs in the library, and hit my head again. And I woke up in the hospital 2 days later. And at this point, I had lost 40 pounds. I was down to 117 pounds. I was dying, hooked up to all these IVs. I thought I died. And maybe part of me wished I did, you know, because I didn't have a lot of self-worth. And I thought there had to be a better way. And when I had that thought, the nurse came in with a mug of tea and on it was a picture of a pretty smart guy, Albert Einstein. And it had a quote that said, the same level of thinking that has created your problem won't solve your problem. And I'll say it another way based on the theme. The same story that got you to where you are will not get you to where you deserve to be. Does that make sense? And so I started asking other questions saying, well, like, what's my problem? Well, I have a very slow, Broken brain, slow learner, and so how can I learn faster? How can I fix my brain? I focused on that for the next 60 days. Light switch flipped on. I started to understand things, focus better, read faster, improve my memory, grades improve, and I couldn't help but help other people. Here's the thing. One of my first students I started tutoring, she read 30 books in 30 days. How many of you buy books and they sit on your shelf? Unread, and it becomes shelf help, not self-help, right? She actually read it, and her motivation was her mom was dying of terminal cancer, was only given two months to live, and the books she was reading were to save her mom's life. And she ended up doing so. And when I heard that, I not only realized that if knowledge is power, learning is your superpower, but I also realized my dharma. My mission in life is to build better, brighter brains, right? No brain left behind. And so, fast forward to about 10 years ago, 2013, I get a call from the office of the chairman of a big film studio and wants to do a brain training. And I go there on a Friday, I do a half-a-day training, and after— and it was my best training because when I'm walking through the halls, I see these movie posters of stories. Epic tales, Star Wars, Avatar, right? And it put me in that kind of state that we'll talk about. And afterwards, to thank me, he gives me a tour of the lot, and I saw this poster of Wolverine, right? And I was like, I can't wait for that film to come out, because it wasn't coming out for a few months. He picks up his phone, and 5 minutes later, I'm in his theater like this, watching Hugh Jackman fight all these super ninjas on a Friday, right? It was incredible. And afterwards, he gets me and says, how was the movie? And I was like, oh, this is incredible. Thank you so much. He's like, you don't know this, but I couldn't read as a kid. I taught myself how to read by reading comic books, and my favorite comic book was Wolverine and his X-Men, not because they're so strong, but because they're different. They're mutants, right? And I felt like I was a mutant. And I read when I was 9 years old in a comic book that their school Professor X's school for the gifted was in Westchester, New York, a suburb of New York City where I lived. And so, true story, another story, I used to ride my bicycle in my neighborhood when I was 9 years old trying to find that school because I wanted to find my superpowers. I wanted to find my friends, right? And I'm telling this to him. He says, Jim, I didn't know you liked X-Men. We have 30 days more of filming the new X-Men movie in Montreal. Do you want to go? And I was like, I totally want to go, yeah. What can I do for you? He's like, oh, just train them how to speed read scripts, memorize lines, be focused on camera. I was like, I can totally do this. Saturday morning, I get on the— what they call the X-Jet, and I'm the last one on because of LA traffic, and everybody's— the whole cast of X-Men's on there, and I don't even see Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart. I see Wolverine, Professor X. And I'm flying to Montreal. In between Halle Berry and Jennifer Lawrence going to the new X-Men filming, and I'm training the cast and crew, and the first shot that they shot, where do you think it took place? In the X-Men school. In the X-Men school, right? So as a 9-year-old boy, to be able to see my heroes come to life, but the best part is when I came home, there was a package waiting for me. It was the size of a television. I open it up, and it's this photo. It's me and the entire cast of the X-Men, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, everybody. But even better than that was a note from the chairman. It said, Jim, thank you so much for sharing your superpowers with all of us. I know since you were a child, you've been searching for your superhero school. Here's your class photo. So, In my book Limitless, I open up with the hero's journey, right? And I think it's a story of going from limitation to liberation. And you face obstacles, you get mentors, there's this whole process. But in these 3 stories, me as a child, me in college, you know, this X-Men, there are 7 things you could do to activate your destiny. And I'm going to use an acronym called DESTINY. What does that stand for? So, the D is decide. Decisions determine destiny. There's a quote in Limitless that's one of the most shared quotes that says, life is the letter C between the letters B and D. Life is C between B and D. What does that mean? B is birth, D is death, life's C, choice. Like the future, your destiny is not a mystery, right? And it's not etched in stone. It's etched in the choices you make every day. So, decide. The E in destiny is envision, right? Without vision, people perish. And your mind doesn't know the difference between something vividly imagined and something that's real. And so, and it activates different parts of your brain. We're not— we can't go through it now, but in neuroscience, different parts of your brain gets activated. You create dopamine, you create oxytocin. That's right. You use different parts of your brain, you know, logical, creative, emotions. And so how can you envision that future? Like I was as a kid trying to find my superhero school. The S is state. All learning, like life, is state dependent. When I say state, I mean your emotional state. And so adding emotion to that visualization will not only help you remember things, But also it'll give you purpose, like hearing that list of things I could do for my parents or this young lady who read 30 books because of her mom. Without reasons, you won't get the results. So how can you add more of those emotions in? The T in destiny is you got to take action. The truth is, in this growth industry, that nobody talks about. Knowledge really isn't power. It is potential power. It only becomes power when we what? Act. When we act on it. But the truth is all the books, podcasts, courses, masterminds, lectures, none of it works until you work. And we can't be upset by the results we didn't get from the work we didn't do. So you have to take that action, intelligent action. The I is involve others. You know, it takes a village. Nobody— I hate on social media when people say they're self-made XYZ, because it really takes a team. It takes clients, it takes mentors. And also the I is invest. You invest in yourself, in those books, in those biographies, in coaching, things that help you to give you representations of other stories. So, that would be the I. The N is nourish. How many people feel a little burnt out the past few years? Sometimes we feel burnt out and stressed, not because we're doing too much. Sometimes we feel burnt out because we're doing too little of the things that make us come alive, self-care even. I always tell people, take your meds every day. Acronym: meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep. Right? Self-care is not selfish. So you want to nourish your way as you go through these chapters of your life. And then finally, the why is you. And I end with you because it's agency. I remember my business partner Alexis and I got to introduce 2 of our superheroes together that wanted to meet Richard Branson and Stan Lee. Yeah, not Stan Lee, but Stan Lee. And who created what? All of the Marvel superheroes. And in the car, I asked— I'm so nervous— I asked Stan, I need to know, who's your favorite superhero? And he says, Jim, it's Iron Man. And then I said— and he says, Jim, who's your favorite superhero? And he had a Spider-Man tie, and I said, Spider-Man. And in his iconic voice, he says, with great power comes great Responsibility. And you all know that. It's like in your story. It's in your DNA. And because maybe I had some head trauma, I reverse things sometimes when I read or what I hear. And I heard something different. I was like, Stan, you're right. With great power comes great responsibility, and the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. As Gio said, you are the main character in your story, and when we take responsibility for something, We have great power to make things better, right? Because it starts with you. And so I would end with this, a challenge. The film that they were filming, this movie, was Days of Future Past. And it's a time travel movie. And it takes place in this dystopian future where it's apocalyptic. And Professor X sends Wolverine back in time because of his healing abilities to give the younger Professor X Advice on how to change course. So my challenge for you as I wrap up is this: what advice would you have given your younger self? Like in my case, what would I say to that 9-year-old boy that was broken? There's a lot of healing in that, right? And then your imagination is so powerful. Fast forward into the future, 5, 10, whatever years, and you are the— You are the desired version of you. I mean, all the time I ask myself this question when I'm stuck. I ask myself, what would my future self want me to do today? Right? And there's a lot of wisdom there also as well. So looking in the future, you have, you are being, doing, having, sharing your life limitless. You look back, what advice would you give yourself today? Because here's the thing. Change is hard, right? Life is hard for one of two reasons. Either you're leaving your comfort zone or you're staying in your comfort zone, right? Comfort zone's nice, but not much grows there. And while growth is hard, change is scary, nothing is as hard and scary as being somewhere you don't— being stuck somewhere you don't belong. Can I— can we agree on that? Because there is a future self That's patiently waiting. There's this destiny that's waiting, and the goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced. Thank you very much. Woo!