How to Heal When Life BREAKS You | Jim Kwik

Welcome back to the Kwik Brain Podcast. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik, and we are going to be talking about repairing a broken brain and finding fortune in failure. How can you not only bounce back, but you could bounce forward? And that's going to be the topic today. I'm going to talk about the philosophy of Kintsugi. Now, before we begin, I want to thank all of you who have taken our very brand new brain type quiz, our cognitive type, if you will. If you haven't yet done that, please take 5 minutes and go do that now. I would even pause this podcast episode if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, wherever you're consuming this right now. Take a moment and go to mybrainanimal.com. This is the most exciting thing that we've done in quite a long time. And how it came about is we get questions all the time about how to learn faster, how to read faster, how to remember more, how to study, how to perform at your best with greater productivity, prosperity, and also peace of mind. And I realized that you can't just tell somebody to do one thing because not one thing fits everybody and not everything's for everybody. Not everybody is for everything. And I realized that after over 3 decades of teaching this and training That there are these 4 unique brain types and I use these animals. And, if you haven't listened to that podcast, we'll link it in the show notes as always at jimkwik.com/notes. But, once you know what your brain type is after answering these questions, you're going to get a detailed report based on your animal brain type, how to study, how to focus, how to set up your day. how to be more productive, how to even influence and persuade people for their empowerment. And I'm very excited. We use the acronym CODE, C-O-D-E. The C is the cheetah. These are the fast actors, the people that are very intuitive. The O in CODE stands for the owls, and the owls are very logic-driven. They lean into data. They love facts and figures and formulas. And The D are your dolphins, which are your creative visionaries, problem solvers. They love using their imagination, great pattern recognizers. And finally, E are the elephants, and these are your empaths. These are the people that work well in teams. They're great collaborators. Anyway, when you go to mybrainanimal.com and you take the quiz, it's absolutely free right now, and you'll get a detailed report customized around your brain type, how to lean into your brain type, to work smart versus work hard. And things become more easy and effortless because you are— you know who you are. Because I really do believe the 2 parts to becoming really fulfilled is you need the curiosity to know yourself, and then you need the courage to be that person. And so, this helps with both, if you will. And so, you get to know yourself. That's why you take these kind of assessments. And it's fun. And then, when you're done, post it online which animal you are and tag me in it as well so I get to see. And we'll be sharing more about this. And you're going to get follow-up emails from me specific for your brain type that's going to help you win every single day. All right. So let's jump into this. We are going to talk about the philosophy of Ken Sugiyama. And this was actually inspired because I did a recent keynote for an organization called Pitao. And it was about 400 executives, marketing executives, and founders. in Southern California. So when we're talking about repairing a broken brain and finding fortune in failure, we're going to focus today on the Japanese art and the philosophy of kintsugi. Now, legend tells of a story of a mighty shogun warrior in the 15th century who broke his favorite tea bowl and sent it away for repairs. And when he received it back, the bowl was welded together. It was actually not welded. It was held together by these unsightly metal staples. And so even though it was still functional, the shogun was very disappointed, as you can imagine. Still hoping to restore his beloved bowl to its former beauty, he asked one of his craftsmen to find a more elegant solution. And the craftsman tried a new technique, something that would add beauty To the bowl as well as repair it. And he mended every crack in the bowl with a lacquer, if you will, that had a resin mixed with gold powder. And when the tea bowl was returned to the shogun, there were streaks of gold running through it. And it tells the story, the warrior thought, of adding to its value and to its beauty. And the method of repair became known as kintsugi. So kintsugi roughly translates To golden joinery is a Japanese philosophy that the value of an object is not in its beauty, but actually in its imperfections, and that these imperfections are something to actually celebrate and not be ashamed of, not be embarrassed about, not to hide. Kintsugi makes something new from something that is broken. Like a pot or, let's say, a bowl, which is transformed to possess a different sort of beauty. And the imperfection, the gold cracks, are what makes the new object different. And that difference makes it unique, and it actually elevates its beauty. Every time you look at it, you welcome this form of contemplation of an object's past. And the moment of failure that the owner had to overcome. It's kind of like human beings that we get bruised or we get cut or we get scarred. And it just shows us that we were strong. We were stronger than anything that we were facing at that time. And I'm sure you're wondering, Jim, what does kintsugi have to do with our brains? More than you think. I mean, many of you know My my story, like a shattered pot. I I know what it's like to feel broken, to feel limited, to struggle with things that seem so easy for others, to feel like I'm trying to piece together a puzzle, if you will, without all the pieces. And if you can relate to that feeling, that's what this show episode is all about. For me, I had a childhood brain injury. I was labeled as the boy with the broken brain because of it. I struggled throughout my schooling. I had processing. issues, problems focusing and remembering. I was labeled broken by a number of people, including some adults. But here's the thing, just like a piece of broken pottery, a broken brain can also be mended. It has that potential. And if it's not your brain, maybe it's a different part that you feel has had some kind of injury or some kind of fall. Maybe it's your business, maybe it's your spirit. And we could actually look into how do we fill those cracks Not with gold or silver, but with knowledge, with skills, with patience, with resilience. And in the process, we don't just repair, we could actually transform. We could become stronger. We could become more unique. We could become, in effect, more beautiful. And so I've come up with an acronym, of course I did, to help you to be able to remember the steps that we could take to begin to heal our brain, to transform our mind into something even more unique, resilient, And strong. You make them mental masterpieces, if you will. So I want you to think about, and if you're taking notes, as many of you go through it, as this is like your online academy, I encourage you to, just like with the Brain Code quiz at mybrainanimal.com, to share it with your friends, your family, post it online if you got value out of this episode. So gold. Now the G could stand for many things. It could stand for things like gratitude. What a wonderful way to look at appreciating the adversity that we've gone through. For me, my struggles became my strengths. My 2 biggest struggles growing up were learning and public speaking, right? And life has a sense of humor because what do I do? Every day, I public speak on this thing called learning. The G I really want to hone in on because it can be multiple Gs and you can think of— I use acronyms also so you could kind of build your own prescriptive solutions, meaning I think you're your ultimate coach. G for me, It starts with a growth mindset. I think it's vital to believe in your ability to develop and to change. We know through the process of neuroplasticity that our thoughts, our beliefs, the architecture of our brain can change over time through experience, through reflection as well, through discipline, through training. And so, how, with a growth mindset, can you embrace challenges? How can you persist in the face of setbacks, see effort as the path to excellence, or Or some people would call it mastery. Learn from the feedback of people around us or the feedback that we're getting just through our situational awareness, right? Our sensory acuity and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others. You know, it could be as simple as starting each day with a positive affirmation, right? It could be as simple as saying, I can learn anything I set my mind to. And you start each and every morning with that. Do you wanna be able to remember confidently the information that you hear on this podcast? Do you want to improve your memory to easily and confidently be able to remember names and faces, client information, give a speech without notes, learn another language, remember what you read, and so much more? There's a solution, and I call it your quick recall. In just 15 minutes a day for 30 days, I've designed the ultimate course, How to Unlock Your Quick Recall. Just go to quickbrain.com. Enter podcast15 for your immediate discount as a thank you for listening to our show. Now, the O could stand for a lot of things. It could be optimism. We know some people suggest that optimism will help you to be able to live longer. I often find, you know, when we're thinking about problems, that the problem is not always the actual problem. The problem is usually our attitudes and our assumptions about that problem itself. The O for me, besides optimism, could stand for open-mindedness. Your mind is like a parachute. It only works when it's open. So, what else could what you went through mean? For me, at the time, I was like, wow, I'm broken. And, every single time I did badly on a quiz, which was all the time, I would say, oh, because I have the broken brain. Every time I was in Pick 4 Sports, which was pretty often, I would say, oh, because I have the broken brain. But get curious and keep an open mind. What else could this mean? Maybe I'm being tested. Maybe I'm being prepared for something. Maybe with challenge equals change, right? So, you're open to new experiences, you're open to new knowledge, new skills, and this keeps your brain flexible, keeps it pliable, keeps it adaptive. Like going back to pottery, like keeping clay soft so it could be molded and it could be shaped. And how do you put that in the practice. Maybe make a habit of trying something new every day or maybe every week. It could be reading a book outside of your usual genre. It could be taking a new route to school or a new route to work. It could be trying a new food. So, just think about how you could keep an open mind and think about your past and maybe give it a different meaning. The L could stand for so many different things. It could stand for love, Right? What if somebody who's broken, you're there just to, another L, listen to them and sit with them? My buddy Simon Sinek, who we've done 3 episodes with, who wrote Start with Why, talked about in a recent podcast episode with Steven, Diary of a CEO, talked about sitting in the mud and just wanting somebody to sit there with them, not necessarily fixing it or anything. For me, L could also stand for In the theme of a growth mindset, lifelong learning. How's that for a bunch of L's? L3, lifelong learning. Never stop learning because life never stops teaching. The more we learn, the stronger our brain becomes and the better we get at learning. And remember, your brain is like a muscle. It's use it or lose it, right? And the more you use it, what happens? The stronger it gets. And so, you could dedicate a specific time each day for learning. It could be, again, reading a book, And if you haven't taken our free masterclass, a 1-hour masterclass, you can go to jimkwik.com/more and learn how to improve your reading speed 50% or 100%. Not only speed, but comprehension. It could be listening to a podcast or even watching a new documentary, right? Whatever you feel called to. But the idea here is you're always learning. And that's the benefit of having your brain. Your brain is the ultimate adaptation machine. So keep feeding your mind with new Useful information and information that could also challenge you. And finally, the D could stand for a number of things. You could think of it like discipline. You could look at it as what else? What else can the D stand for? For me, I'm going to talk about dedication. Are you dedicated to the process? Repairing a broken brain is not an overnight process, right? It just isn't for most things. Repairing something that is valuable to you, it could take some time, just like it took time to repair You know, a broken teapot. But each moment you spend at it, you get a step closer, right? And you get a step stronger. Do you guess where you're getting a step closer and stronger to? A more resilient and a more beautiful you. So how can you put this into action? Maybe you could be setting clear goals. We've talked about goal setting and goal getting in a previous podcast. You could start tracking your progress. You could start How about this? Bringing joy to the process. How do you celebrate small victories? And remember that healing, you know, just like growth, it's a journey. It's not a destination. So my challenge is sometimes we think that physical pain is more dramatic than mental or emotional pain. It's a lot easier to say like, oh, I banged up my knee, my knee hurts, than it is to say, you know, I just feel shattered. You know, I feel broken. My spirit is down, right? And so, what I would say is this process of kintsugi is a process of self-care. It's a process for self-love because obviously, that gold also could be the things that are of value. You know, I talk about that sometimes when you feel burnt out and some people feel like they're mentally burnt out, maybe it's not because you're doing too much. Maybe it's because also you're doing too little of the things That are golden in your life, that things that make you come alive. And part of it could be self-care, right? How do you fix a broken brain? We know this. If you go again to jimkwik.com/more, I have 3 videos on the 10 things that I do and I teach you how to remember that. And as if you're going to give a TEDx talk on it, the best brain foods, which some of you have memorized, and also how to optimize your sleep because that could definitely be useful in repairing a broken brain. So there you have it, the philosophy of Kintsugi. I happen to apply it towards my brain because that was the thing that I could relate to. But just know that your past is not necessarily a weakness. It could be your strength. It's the cracks that's filled with gold that make you unique. It's the journey from broken to getting back to a place where you feel more whole, that you feel more resilient. It's your determination to learn. To grow that makes you faster, smarter, and stronger. And we do it together. So remember, you are not broken. You are kintsugi. You are gold. You might stumble along the way, just as a potter might occasionally drop a piece. But each stumble, right, each break is just another opportunity for you to fill those cracks with gold, to become stronger, more resilient, more unique. So when we fall and we get hurt, you know, obviously we step up again. It's just like that proverb that you could fall down 7 times, but you could get up 8 times, right? And so let's step out there. Let's shine like gold. Do not dim your light because you're afraid that it's going to shine in somebody else's eyes. You know, embrace the art of Kintsugi. And, and remember, you are the potter of your own mind. It's your hands, right? You're handling it to shape it, to mend it, to make it a masterpiece. Because I truly do believe that your life is the greatest project you're ever going to get to work on. And you want to take time, you want to make time, and you want to create magic. So until next time, remember, you have the power to learn, to grow, to become a better version of yourself. Every single day, and you are golden, my friends. If you've enjoyed this episode, the best thing you do is subscribe, right? That allows us to get even more guests here. The more subscribers that our guests see, the platform, the army that you are, that we have formed together, people who really want to actualize their mental potential. People who are lifelong learners who prioritize their brain health and they know with greater brain health leads to greater mental health and mental fitness. And so that's the episode. Make sure you subscribe, share, leave a review, and become the amazing limitless learner that you are. And this is Jim Kwik, your brain coach, signing off, and I'll see you in our next episode. Bye now.