“Genius extends far beyond your ability to excel at academics or recite the periodic table on command.” — Jim Kwik
“I’m so stupid.” “I don’t understand.” “I’m too dumb to learn.”
There wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t tell myself I was slow, dumb, and that I would never learn to read, much less amount to anything later in life. I remember one day in elementary school, a teacher, frustrated because I wasn’t understanding the lesson, pointed at me and said, “That’s the boy with the broken brain.” I was crushed to realise this was how she saw me—and that others probably saw me the same way.
These are the words and experiences of Jim Kwik during his school days. If you think you have limiting factors, think again because Jim Kwik isn’t new to this.
Asides family, the community significantly affects a child. Many other students have gone through similar or worse situations. Often, when you label someone or something, you create a limit, and the label becomes the limitation. This is why it is crucial for adults to be careful with their words because they automatically become the child’s internal words.
The discussion on mental intelligence should be more frequent. People need to understand how their brain works. When you do not understand how your brain works, it affects your overall performance. Due to this misunderstanding, people have raised several misconceptions about themselves.
Is it possible to unlock your super brain?
Do you have a super brain?
Are specific people meant to have the super brain? In today’s article, we will explore Jim Kwik’s story, his childhood limitations, and how he overcame them to awaken his super brain.
JIM KWIK
Jim Kwik is an American brain coach, podcaster, writer, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Kwik learning, an online learning platform. He is the host of the Kwik Brain podcast and the author of the Limitless– an owners manual for mental expansion, mindset revolution and brain fitness. In addition to his mental challenges as a child, the loss of his grandmother who died due to dementia is the reason why he is so passionate about brain health and fitness.
He has funded the creation of schools around the world from Guatemala to Kenya, providing health care, clean water, and learning for children in need via amazing organisations such as WE Charity and Pencils of Promise.
His life’s mission is to build better brighter brains. He and his team have left no brain behind. And have taught these techniques to others with astonishing results, leading me to address more than 150,000 people in live audiences each year in every field imaginable, to serve as the brain coach to top personalities in sports and entertainment, to train at many of the world’s leading companies and universities, to head a large accelerated learning online platform with students from 195 countries.
Astonishing, isn’t it?
It meant interest you to know that his story wasn’t always as good as this.
One peculiar thing about this author is his ability to remain resilient and determined even with the odds that surrounded him.
He grew up in Westchester County, a suburb of New York City. He had always loved superheroes movies and one day, while he was in class, there were sirens outside the window. Everyone in the classroom took notice, and the teacher looked out and said she saw fire trucks. The entire class responded to this information the way kindergarteners do: They immediately rushed to the windows.
He was particularly excited because, by that point, he was already obsessed with superheroes and still is. To me, firefighters were the closest thing to real-life superheroes. He bolted to the window with everyone else.
The only problem was that he wasn’t tall enough to be able to look down at the fire trucks.
One kid went to grab his chair to stand on, and afterwards, they all got inspired to do so. After getting his chair, he stared at them the Firefighters with such fascination.But then one of the other kids grabbed his chair from beneath me, which caused me to lose balance and go flying head-first into the radiator. He hit the
The metal heater was extremely hard and started losing blood.
The school rushed him to the hospital, where doctors tended to his wounds. But they were candid with my mother afterward; the injury to my brain was not mild.
Things pretty much changed afterwards as Jim Kwik, a three year old, was diagnosed to have a broken brain.
A child who was once energised, confident, and curious before, now I was noticeably shut down and had a new difficulty learning; he found it extremely hard to focus, I couldn’t concentrate, and my memory was awful. Afterwards, school became an ordeal for him, As teachers would repeat themselves until I learned to pretend to understand. And while all the other kids were learning to read, he couldn’t make any sense out of the letters. This time, he hated reading circles, passing around the book, and having to read out loud? For him, that was the worst as his self confidence had gone down the drain.
What kept him going at this point were his comic books which he would read with his flashlight late at night. Those stories gave him the hope that a person could overcome impossible odds.
His favourite superheros was the X-men and this he could easily relate to as a child not because of how strong they were but because they were greatly misunderstood just as he was.
Jim Kwik was forced to face a new world at a tender age, a world where he was constantly being bullied and looked down on.High school wasn’t any different as he really thrived to get past it, after which he attended a local university. At this point, he realised that things aren’t getting better and decided to leave the university, especially because he didn’t have the financial capability. He had set his mind straight on this decision but something happened.
Kwik’s Unlimitless Farce
At Jim’s friend’s house, he met with his friend’s father who showed him around his property. Along the way, he asked Jim a question Kim had not been waiting to hear – How is school going for you? To the man’s shock, Jim started crying profusely and quite understandably so.
Afterwards, Jim went on and told him all he had been through. When he was done, he went on to ask him thought provoking questions – one he had never been asked. I’ll show you how to ask questions to learn and achieve anything faster.
His fathers friend took him to his study room, where he gave him some books to read. He realised that they were biographies of incredible men and women throughout history, as well as some early personal-growth books such as The Magic of Thinking Big, The Power of Positive Thinking, and Think and Grow Rich. Now at this point, Jim wasn’t a fan of books, and he immediately showed his uninterestedness and disapproval.
In his mind, he wondered if the man wasn’t paying attention to all he had earlier said. To make it worse, he told Jim to read each book for a week. Jim immediately started making excuses and told him was only going to try.
Something had awakened in him that day and he was going to thrive to see it to its end.
When he got back to school, he came with more vigour and determination to face his fears head on. Now he had to read for school and also fulfil the promise he made to his friend’s father. He found himself struggling with the first pile and wondered how he would get through the second pile, especially because he didn’t have enough time to read it all.
In order to be able to cover up, Jim Kwik blocked out everything and everyone, friends, food, sleep and exercise- the library became his home.
Jim, out of share exhaustion after reading one night, fell down a flight of stairs, sustaining yet another head injury and didn’t wake up until two days after. Now this is what I would call village people syndrome.
Sometimes, when bad things happen, we believe they are happening against us rather than for us. But what if they are happening for us? What if we don’t go through that farce, we won’t be the person we need to be?
Jim Kwik woke up in the hospital, thinking he was dead, and truthfully, some part of him wished he was, He was at his lowest point in his life, coupled with his broken brain, he had another injury? How was he going to go about this? But with the little strength he had left, he told himself that there still had to be a way. Now many of us would have just decided to leave things the way they are but that wasn’t Jim.
The nurse came in shortly after with a cup of coffee and right on the mug. He saw a quote from Einstein.
“You cannot solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
From that moment on, something clicked, it was as though he had found the answer he had always been awaiting. And he started to self analyse. and asked himself, maybe I am asking the wrong question.
He knew what his problem us, he knew he was a slow learner, but he had been thinking the same way about it for years. He realised that he was trying to solve his learning problems by thinking the way he had been taught to think—to just work harder. But what if I could teach myself a better method to learn? he asked
Being able to identify a problem is one thing. It takes a greater level of ability to think out of that problem, out of your own flaws and capacity to re envision your mind in a way that could solve that problem this was what Jim lacked all along. And this is what most of us are struggling with. As Einstein said,
“You cannot solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created it”
Nothing is going to change until you make a move, move out of your comfort zone, get more knowledge about that issue and sort ways, techniques, methods to make it work for you.
Being in the same position and wishing something miraculous happens isn’t going to yield positive results, you are your own miracle, you can be limitless if you choose to be.
Are you a student, yet you find it hard to learn, concentrate and assimilate? Have you found an alternative? Are you willing to be better? Aren’t you tired of complaining about the same thing over and over again? What if you could learn in a way that is more efficient, effective, and even enjoyable? What if you could learn how to learn faster?
Jim Kwik asked himself these same questions and remained committed to learning how to learn.
After he left the hospital. He set his studies aside and began sorting ways to improve his learning skills.He focused only on the books that his mentor gave him, as well as books he found on adult learning theory, multiple intelligence theory, neuroscience, personal growth, educational psychology, speed reading, and even ancient mnemonics (he wanted to know
what older cultures did to pass on knowledge before they had external storage devices like the printing press and computers).
He became obsessed with solving the riddle of how his brain worked, so he could work his brain. And after a couple of months of deep immersion into his new self-directed studies, things began to happen.
His ability to focus was stronger. He started to understand new concepts because He was able to concentrate—He was no longer easily distracted. He could better recall information that I had studied weeks before with little difficulty. He had a new level of energy and curiosity.
For the first time in he life, he could read and comprehend information in a fraction of the time that it used to take. His newfound competence gave me a sense of confidence that he had never felt before. My daily life changed too— he knew what to do to move myself forward, and I unlocked an empowering and sustainable sense of motivation. With his newly found results, his mindset changed and he started to believe that anything was possible.
Imagine the joy he must have felt- he had a reason to live again, a new found purpose to fulfil and he wasn’t going to keep this discovery all to himself. He started tutoring these methods to other students. The turning point came when he worked with a freshman who wanted to learn how to read faster, boost comprehension, and retain the information she was studying. She worked diligently and achieved her goal of reading 30 books in 30 days. Kwik knew how she did it—he taught her how to achieve this.
Jim Kwik realised that if knowledge is power then learning is his superpower!
Seeing the way this woman’s life was changed ignited in him a purpose, allowing him to recognize what became his life’s mission: to teach the mindset, motivation, and methods to upgrade the brain and learn anything faster so he could unlock peoples exceptional lives.
Now, what are these discoveries? and how can we awaken our super brain?
Three ways to Awaken Your Superbrain.
In order to awaken our super brain, we first have to know what our limiting factors are. According to Jim Kwik, there are three limiting factors and each human is affected by either one of them.They include;
1 A limit in your Mindset: This is when you entertain a low belief in yourself, your capabilities, what you deserve, or what is possible.
2 A limit in your Motivation: This is when you lack the drive, purpose, or energy to take action.
3 A limit in your Methods: This is when you were taught and are acting on a process that is not effective to create the results you desire.
Now, lets that this one after the other,
The Mindset Limitation
Asides what people think of us we all have deeply held beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions
we create about who we are, how the world works, what we are capable of and deserve, and what is possible we think is attainable. We all have our own unique story of struggles and strengths and this usually serves as the lens in which we see ourselves and our capabilities.
This says a lot! And plays a big role in shaping our mindsets, causing there to be a limit.
Jim Kwik in his book- limitless, explains the root cause of this problem, stating that-
Our brains are subject to the influence of our genes and our environment. We each possess a brain that is entirely unique to us.They’re like snowflakes; no two are alike. Each brain adapts to the needs of its owner.
The brain tends to change and mold itself to the surroundings and to the demands you place on it.
So you might want to ask yourself, What demands are you placing on your brain?
Jim Kwik uses an example to buttress his point about how an environment can affect a person’s mentality.
For instance, a person raised in an environment that is full of stressors such as poverty, lack of access to food, or lack of safety. That person will have a very different brain structure than someone brought up in a very comfortable, affluent, well-cared-for setting. But before you jump to the conclusion that one environment is “better” than the other and breeds a better functioning brain, I challenge you to reconsider.
While it’s easy to assume that the individual who grew up in a more stressful, unsupportive environment may not wind up reaching their full potential due to their brain’s development under those circumstances, growing evidence suggests those people are able to thrive and reach new levels of success due to the mindset are forced to develop in such a situation.
As earlier stated, the brain is capable of being molded and shaped, meaning that at any point anyone can decide to change the way their brain functions. Jim Kwik comes to the conclusion that It doesn’t matter whether or not a persons environmental factors are working for or against them, what really, matters is the individual. Your heart as to be at the right place in order to get successful. Learn ways to cultivate the right mindset from Charles Darin
Asides environmental factors, Jim Kwik considers that another limiting factor affecting our super brain from awakening is self esteem. We need to learn ways to improve our self esteem. If you aren’t confident of who you are and what you carry, then no else can for you. Your brain senses your emotions more than you think it does and acts according to what you feed it.The have a super brain, the more you work on it, the more your superpower(brain) improves, the more you don’t, the more your superpowers decrease.
The Method Limitation
This is when you were taught and are acting on a process that is not effective to create the results you desire. Kwik tells us his book, the struggles he encountered in his early years in school. His teachers would usually tell them to read hard and study hard in order to attain academic success. But discovered that no matter how much he studied hard and burnt the midnight candle, he couldn’t comprehend, nor was this method working for him.
Kwik later discovers that if he could unlearn what he had learned and acquire more knowledge about how his brain works and functions, then it would yield the results he had wanted. And guess what, it worked.
As students, we are usually told that listening, copying notes, reading, asking questions and doing assignments diligently would assure us academic success and yes, this is true. But as we had earlier said, no two brains are the same. If this is true, what works for A may not necessarily work for B and vice versa. Jim Kwik knew he was a slow learner and had been thinking from that lens for years, which automatically limited his super brain.
This is why it is very important we understand our brain and how it functions. The earlier we get this, the better it is for us to awaken our superpower which is our super brain.
If academic institutions aren’t given the responsibility to teach students how to learn or the right methods of learning that work for each individually, then it betells on us to look for the method that works for us to yield the results we desire.
You can be better if you choose to be. That dream you have always thought of coming to life but seems almost impossible is meant for you, not for someone else.You have all you need inside of you, all you have to do is unlock those powers.
The Motivation Limitation
Do you think you’ve seen it all, tried it all and failed?
Well, permit me to introduce you to someone who has felt and experienced more than you can ever have experienced.
Jim Kwik wasn’t from a rich family, he wasn’t born with any defeats, neither did he fathom or expect his life to turn out the way it did. This is someone who was smart, zealous and agile as a kid, he fell not once but twice, crushing and damaging tremendously his chance of ever making something tangible out of his life. At some point, he trained himself through high school. In between all these occurrences, Jim Kwik chooses to keep thriving, pushing and encouraging himself. Think of the ridicule, the insults, bullying and derogatory statements he must have received, from his very young age till his high school days.
In Spite of all these, he never stopped!
He just kept going until he got it.
Now, remind me why you don’t have the motivation to keep going?
If Jim Kwik isn’t enough motivation for you, then I don’t know who will.
If you don’t choose to keep motivating yourself, to keep going, keep searching and sorting methods to help you go as far as you want to. Then no one can.
You have to be your biggest motivation.
You are not stupid, neither are you dumb. You have the best powers that Life could ever give and that’s your super brain. You can be limitless if you decide to understand how your brain works and what your best way of learning is.
If there is anything I have come to realise, it’s the fact that we don’t enjoy learning. And we forget that this is how we can grow and become what we have always wanted to.
Jim Kwik knew this and was able to awaken his by having motivation, changing his limiting methods of learning and having the right mindset. All these he did by learning. He didn’t stop but decided to teach others how to awaken their super brains and live beyond their limitations.Jim Kwik went from being a boy with a broken brain to a renowned brain coach.
Jim Kwik story is an inspirational one that teaches all of us that our goals can be achieved.It doesn’t stop at that but also helps you sort ways to achieve our goals.
You have all you need inside of you,stop wishing for something you already have. All you have to make is a decision.
