The Boy With the Broken Brain | Jim Kwik

As you know, I grew up with learning difficulties. Some people are surprised to hear at the age of 5, I had a bad accident, head trauma, brain injury, and I had these learning challenges, if you were, you know, I had bad focus. I had no memory to speak of. I didn't— teachers would have to repeat themselves 4, 5, 6 times, and then I wouldn't get it. I would pretend to understand. And I don't know if anyone could relate to that, but I had this like imposter syndrome when I was a child. And it took me actually a few years just to learn how to read. I remember, I don't talk about this, but in school, in elementary school, all my friends, they got invited to be part of this MASP program because I always played with all the Dungeons and Dragons and comic book geeks. And the only difference with them and me is I didn't have the grades. They're really, really smart, right? And but they, there was this group called MASP and MASP stands for More Able Students. And it was me and my friend Joey. We weren't invited in this program, so we created our own little group, our own clique, and we called it LASP. We were the Less Able Student Program. And, and so I remember at the age of 9, a teacher pointing to me, talking to another adult, saying, that's the boy with the broken brain. And that was my label. And, and anyone who has a child or anyone who was a child at one point in their life can relate to that. Parents have to be very careful with the words they use because your external words become a child's internal words, and that became my internal talk. Every time I wasn't picked for the soccer team, every time I did badly on a quiz and a test, which was all the time, I always said, oh, it's 'cause I have the broken brain. And that became my internal conversation. And I always tell people, if you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you argue for those limits, they're yours. And I had that all through school. I had such a bad fear of— I was painfully shy, not just introverted, but shy. Because when you feel like you're broken, you don't feel like you have anything to add in terms of value. So I didn't have a lot of friends. I would just watch people and study them and just wonder why was this person, you know, so successful at school or have, you know, so popular or picked for all these teams. And I'd be painfully shy. I would actually, I remember, I don't talk about this a lot, but they pulled my parents in my English class in high school And I was failing. And he was like, the teacher said, okay, I'll give you one chance. You need this extra credit report. And, you know, and it was on Einstein and da Vinci. And, you know, and I didn't know anything about them, but this is what's gonna allow you to pass. And I was so excited because I put all my energy in there for months and I did this book report. And I've never put all of my talent and time and focus into one project before. And the day I had to turn it in, I had it professionally bound. I mean, it was like, So proud of it, because I've never been good at anything. And at the end of class, the teacher's like, I have a surprise for everybody. Jim, come up in front of the class and tell everyone about Einstein and da Vinci. And I was so scared. I didn't realize I had to give a talk, like a book report on this. So I said— I lied. I said I didn't do it. And after 3 months of pouring my heart and everything into it, my potential, if you will, I just, I lied. I said I didn't do it because I was so fearful of getting in front of a group of people. I know fear of public speaking is a big deal for a lot of people. And after, you could look at the teacher's face, she was so disappointed. And I was disappointed in myself also. And but after the class left, I remember taking it out of my backpack and throwing it into the trash. I felt like when I did that, I was also throwing away something else, like maybe be my dreams, if you will. But at the age of 18, I thought I could turn it all around. I was lucky enough to get into college, university. I wanted to make a fresh start, show my family, show the world, show myself I could do it. And I did worse. And at that time, I just doubled down and I was just ready to quit. And a friend's like, hey, why don't you get some perspective before you tell your family you're quitting school? Come visit. my family this weekend. I'm going home. And I did. And the family was pretty well off and happy and successful, if you will. And the father walks me around his property and says, Jim, you know, how's school? And I just— that's the worst question you could ask me. And I just start bawling. And I just— I was like, I tell my whole story about the broken brain. He's like, Jim, why are you in school? What do you want to be? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? What do you want to share in the world? And I honestly didn't have any clue. It's funny, when you don't ask yourself that question, you don't have answers. You know, those are conversations that I had growing up. And I, um, and I, and I go to answer him and he takes out— he says, stop. Takes out a piece of paper out of his back pocket and makes me write it down. You know how important it is to write and reflect. I never did that before. When I was done, I had this bucket list of all the things that I want to accomplish. And when I was— I started folding the sheets and he grabbed it out of my hand and he starts reading it. And I'm freaking out because I wasn't expecting him to look at my deepest dreams. And when he's done, he's like, Jim, you are this close to everything on that list. And he spreads his fingers about a foot apart. And I was like, no way. Give me ten lifetimes. I'm not going to crack that list. He takes his fingers and he puts them to the side of my head, meaning what's in between is really the answer, the key, the bridge, if you will, which was my brain. And he walks me into a room of his home, into a room I've never seen. You would love it. It's wall to wall, ceiling to floor covered in books. And I'm phobic of books, right? I mean, I'm just not a good reader. Never finished a book in my life. At that time. Yeah. And this is like, I mean, now I read, I read a book. day. Yes. I'm so— they're my best friends. But, um, but they're like, you know, a lot of people afraid of snakes. It's like being in a room full of snakes. But what makes it worse, he starts grabbing snakes and handing them to me. I started looking at these titles and they're classics. There's these incredible biographies of men and women in history and some very early personal growth books like Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking, Dale Carnegie, I mean Napoleon Hill, all the classics, right? He's like, Jim, I want you to read one book a week. And I was like, no way. I know I'm fighting for my limitations. I can't do that. I have so much schoolwork. And he just looked at me He's like, Jim, don't let school get in the way of your education. And I didn't realize this was a Mark Twain quote at the time. It was like over 25 years ago. And I was like, that's really insightful, but I still, I can't commit to this. If I'm gonna commit to it, I'm gonna do it. And very smart man, he reaches into his pocket and he still has my bucket list and he starts reading every single one of my dreams out loud. And I don't know what it was, Jay, just hearing, imagine you're this insecure 18-year-old kid and you start hearing your deepest dreams you've never articulated out loud. yourself, much less you hear from another man's voice and cant it out into the universe. And it messed with my mind and my heart something fierce. And honestly, a lot of the— half that list were things I wanted to do for my family. You know, my parents immigrated here from Asia. We— I mean, typical story, we lived in the back of a laundromat, didn't speak the language, didn't have any money, education, any of that. And I just— I wanted to do stuff for my family that day, all because of all their sacrifice. And with that leverage and understanding the importance of drive and motivation to get through, I'm very curious what motivates people to do things. You know, to take— I don't believe knowledge is power at all. You know, all the— it's potential, has the potential to be power, right? You know, but all the podcasts, online programs, coaching seminars, none of it works unless we work it. And so with that motivation, I I agree to read one book a week. So fast forward, I'm back at school and I'm sitting at my desk. I have a pile of books I have to read for midterms, and I have a pile of books that I promised to read, and I couldn't even do one pile of books. So what do I do? I sacrifice. I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't work out, I don't spend time with friends. I don't— I live in the library, and I just— it's not very sustainable. And I end up passing out one night out of sheer exhaustion. I fall down a flight of stairs in the library, hit my head again. And then I wake up 2 days later in the hospital. And at this point, I've lost all— I was down 117 pounds. The scariest point in my life ever. I thought I died. And, you know, when you have a near-death experience, I mean, it makes you think about, like, deep about who you are. And, you know, I think a lot of people have, you know, honestly, near-life experiences where they're not stepping into that place, but made me ask a new question. know, why am I here? Why am I struggling like this? And I didn't have any answers. It's like, man, I have a really slow brain. And then at that time, you know, the nurse came in with a mug of tea and it had a picture of the same one, the person I did the book report on, Albert Einstein. And it was like, and there's a quote on there. I felt like he was speaking to me. It said, the same level of thinking that's created your problem won't solve your problem. And I was like, well, what's my problem? I was like, I have a very slow learner. I'm a very slow brain. It's like, well, how do I think differently about it? Well, maybe I can learn how to learn faster. Maybe I can learn how to have a faster brain. And I put my studies aside and I just start studying learning, you know, learning how to learn. I think it's a superpower. If there's one skill to master in the 21st century, you know, with all this change that's going on, rapid change, it's the only constant is just how do you learn it and absorb it and think differently and apply it. And so I started studying neuroscience and learning theory, multiple intelligences, anything I get my hands on, mnemonics, speed reading, everything. And then about 6 days into it, a light switch went on and I started to understand things for the very first time. I mean, it was just like— and I remember, I never talk about this, but I remember the time, the moment it happened. It was, we were in class, it was about 300 people in a lecture center. And back then there were these overhead projectors, right? Yeah. With these, you know, and like with these, with these like Yeah. He's pulling like, and, and then professor puts something on the overhead projector. And, you know, a few seconds into it, I just start laughing. And I'm so quiet. I'm the quiet one in class. I do everything to not, like, if I was to have one superpower back in school, it was invisibility. Like, I didn't want to be seen. I didn't, I mean, I wanted to be seen. I want to be heard, but I didn't want the spotlight, you know? And so, because, you know, when you're broken and you feel like you're not enough, you don't want that attention. But I start laughing out loud, really loud, and everyone turns around and looks at me. And I'm freaking out, like, oh my goodness, because I didn't realize it. And then about 30 seconds into it, other people started laughing. There was this ripple effect, and we were laughing at what was on the screen, but I had just read it and learned it really fast, right at that moment, and I didn't realize it at the time. Oh wow. But with my grades, when my grades improved, my life improved. And here's the thing, when my inspiration really was my desperation. You know, how I ended up on this path all those years ago was I couldn't help but help other people, right? You talk about your passion, and my passion became learning, but my purpose also became teaching, you know, sharing it with other people, because I felt really upset that I wasn't taught this back in school, and I had to go through all that suffering and struggling every single day, you know, sometimes crying myself to sleep, not feeling I was enough. Mm-hmm.