Limitless - Jim Kwik Page 0,3

was at risk of failing English. My parents were called in by my teacher to discuss what I could do to muster a passing grade.

She offered an extra-credit project for me. I was to write a report comparing the lives and accomplishments of two geniuses: Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein. She told me that if I did a good job on this report, she would be able to give me enough points to make sure I passed the class.

I considered this to be a huge opportunity, a chance to hit the reset button on what had been a difficult start to my high school career. I committed everything I had to writing the best report I possibly could. I spent hours and hours and hours at the library after school, trying to learn everything I could learn about these two brilliant minds while working on this paper. Interestingly, during that research I came across multiple mentions that Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci each struggled with alleged learning difficulties.

After weeks of effort, I typed up the final report. I was so proud of what I’d done that I had the pages professionally bound. This report was a statement for me; it was the way I was going to announce to the world what I was capable of doing.

The day the report was due, I put it in my backpack, excited about handing it to my teacher and even more excited about the response I anticipated she would have to what I’d done. I planned to give it to her at the end of class, so I sat through whatever we were doing that day, trying to concentrate but constantly finding my thoughts flitting back to the look I expected to see on my teacher’s face when I presented her with the report.

But then she threw me a curveball I was not prepared to hit. About halfway through the class period, the teacher ended her lesson and told the students that she had a surprise for them. She said that I had been working on an extra-credit report and that she would like me to present it to the class—now.

I had spent most of my school life trying to shrink so small that I wouldn’t be called on in class; when you are the broken one, you don’t feel like you have much to offer. I was beyond shy, and I didn’t like to draw attention to myself. My superpower back then was being invisible. I was also deathly afraid of speaking in public. I’m not exaggerating here. If you hooked me up to a heart monitor at that moment, I might have broken the machine. On top of this, I could barely breathe. There was simply no way I was going to be able to stand in front of everyone and talk to them about the work I’d done. So, I took the only option I saw available to me.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t do it,” I stuttered, just barely getting the words out of my mouth.

The expression of disappointment on my teacher’s face—so different from the expression I’d fantasized earlier—was so profound that my heart nearly broke. But I just couldn’t do what she wanted me to do. When class was over, after everyone had left, I threw my report in the garbage, and along with it a big part of my self-respect and worth.

YOU ARE CLOSER THAN YOU THINK

Somehow, in spite of all the troubles I had in school, I managed to get into a local university. I thought being a freshman in college meant a last opportunity to make a fresh start. I dreamt about making my family proud, and to showing the world (and, more importantly, myself) that I did have the potential to succeed. I was in a new environment. College professors taught differently than high school teachers did, and no one at this college had any preconceived notions about me. I worked my butt off, but I actually wound up doing even worse in my college classes than high school.

A few months into this, I started to face my reality. I couldn’t see the point of wasting time and money that I did not have. I was ready to quit school altogether. I told a friend about my plans and he suggested that, before I made a decision, I go with him to visit his family for the weekend. He thought that getting me away from the campus might give me some perspective. When