Author and brain coach Jim Kwik: Knowledge is power, learning is our superpower

Jim Kwik had suffered three brain injuries by the time he turned 12. The most significant happened when he was just five. “I had an accident where I fell off a chair and headfirst into a heater,” the entrepreneur and founder of Kwik Learning tells me. “I developed learning difficulties and processing issues. I had migraines every day, and balance issues too. It took me three years longer [than it should have] to learn to read. I was slowing down the rest of my class and being teased and bullied for it.” In an unadvisable turn of phrase, one of his teachers at the time leapt to his defence and told the class to quit taunting “the boy with the broken brain”.On the latest episode of Brave New World, Kwik reveals how he turned this phrase on its head, becoming a world expert on brain health and optimisation. His tips and tricks on how to improve cognition, outlined in his bestselling book, Limitless (2020), are uniquely accessible. “In school they teach you what to learn, but less so how to learn,” Kwik says. His learning disabilities pushed him to think long and hard about the latter. “How does my brain work?” he recalls wondering. “And how can I work my brain?”