Jim Kwik describes a brain injury at age five that left him struggling with focus and memory, and how negative labels from teachers reinforced a limiting belief. He argues all behavior is belief-driven, citing Roger Bannister's four-minute mile, and emphasizes extreme ownership of your feelings rather than blaming circumstances.
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I grew up, some of you know, with learning challenges, very severe. When I was 5 years old in kindergarten class, I had a very bad fall, had traumatic brain injury, rushed to the hospital, and my parents, the way they described it, said I was never the same, meaning that before I was very, as a kid, very playful, very curious, very energized, but I became extremely closed down and shut down. I had very poor focus. I couldn't remember anything. My teachers would repeat themselves over and over again, and then I learned to just play along and pretend to understand, but I didn't really understand. It took me 3 years longer just to learn how to read. And it was just, you know, it's like a lot— pretty traumatic as a child, you know, when they passed around that book. Do you remember that? And you had to read out loud, and every single time that book got closer, I would go out of my mind. I think that's where a lot of fear of public speaking came from, is we learned it, right? Because I would get the book, and honestly, these words meant nothing to me, and I would just be so embarrassed, I would just pass it on to the next person. When I was 9 years old, I was struggling so badly. I didn't get the lesson. I was slowing down the class. You could tell the teacher was giving extra attention, but the other kids started to tease me for it, and the teacher came to my defense and pointed out that I was different. But all I remember her doing, she pointed me for the whole class and said, that's the boy with the broken brain. And that label became my limit. It was a good intention, right? But teacher— adults in general have to be very careful With our external words because they become a child's internal words. You get that? Like, for me, like, where it manifested every time I did badly on a test, which was like all the time, every time I wasn't picked for sports, which was all the time, I would say, oh, because I have the broken brain, right? And that became my inner self-talk. That's why I started with belief first, because if you believe you can or can't, either way you're right, because all behavior is belief-driven. If you believe you can or believe you can't, either way, what? You do it. Henry Ford said that, right? If you believe you can or believe you can't, either way you're right, you're correct. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. Is that true? If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. Then they become yours, right? What did Roger Bannister do famously in 1954? The 4-minute mile. The 4-minute mile, right? Throughout human history, nobody could run a mile in less than 4 minutes. And then if you saw the ESPN special, did you see the documentary? He would visualize himself crossing the finish line, and in his mind, look at the clock, it says 3 minutes and 59 seconds. Because he knows what you know, that success is an inside-out process, right? It's today about taking the invisible and making it visible, that the human brain doesn't know the difference between something you vividly imagine and something that is real. Because Roger Bannister, when he broke the— not only did visualization— that wasn't the interesting part of the documentary. What was interesting to me is nobody could do it for thousands of years. One person does it, what happens after that? Everybody's doing it. Yeah. And then was there big advancements in shoe technology or nutritional support, training methodology? No. Where was the change? A belief. Because what was the belief back then? Not only that it was impossible, it was that you would die trying. that if the human heart couldn't sustain a sub-4-minute mile, it would explode in your chest. Now, I'm a runner, right? You know, that wouldn't keep me from running. That would keep me from jogging, right? I'd be so scared because all behavior is belief-driven. When we take responsibility for something, we don't blame and complain. You know, as Jocko talks about, extreme ownership, we own it, right? Then we have great power to make things better, right? And I think the most important thing to be responsible for, honestly, is how you feel. You know, so many of us, we get the weather and we react, and we're human beings, we're thermometers sometimes. We react to politics, react to weather, we react to how people treat us. But in actuality, who— we give up our sovereignty, right? But in actuality, who controls this? We do. And so the thing is, is anything worth having is worth doing, right? And I'm not saying it's necessarily easy, but I'm telling you it's worth it. Then, for example, the number one business etiquette networking skill there is is remembering people's names. Because if you can't do that, it doesn't matter what you say after that, right? And so if someone feels disrespected or that you don't care, they're not important, right? Then so here's the thing, the exercise, like I'm very good at remembering names. You could watch me memorizing like an audience full of people's names, but I haven't gotten much better after 30, 60 days of practice, right? Because once you know how to drive, once you know how to type, once you know how to tie your shoes, it's just what you do, right? So memory is a skill and everybody could do it. We just never took a class on it, right? So I put in my Instagram link, like actually a 3-part video on how to remember names, how to do these things. So it's there for you. It's free, right? But you need to be able to practice. How long does it take to change a habit? 21 days. 21 days, 30 days. Some people say 66 days. You know, the consistency. If you're persistent, you could achieve it. But if you're consistent, you get to keep it just like sales. Right? So the consistency compounds little by little. A little bit becomes a lot. This will give you such an unfair advantage. All right. And then that's the E is exercise. And then finally, fast. The F to learn any subject faster or skill, forget. Start with forgetting. Meaning the challenge, what slows people down often is this idea that, oh, I know this already. And here's the thing. There's so much new information. That the half-life of information keeps getting smaller and smaller, meaning how fast and quickly information becomes outdated. Because what worked in marketing or sales or health and wellness is maybe not what worked 2 years ago. So we have to empty our cup, right? They call it a beginner's mind, right? So you empty your cup so you can put new information in, because what could keep you from learning? So many people say that they have 20 years of experience. When you talk to them, You find out and discover they've only had 1 year of experience that they've repeated 20 times. Does that make sense? Because they're not— they're not updating their knowledge, skills, and abilities.
