Speaking and Communicating Podcast

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

Today, I have Howard Berg, and listen to this.

He is a Guinness Book of Old Record Holders for being the fastest reader in the world.

And before I go any further, let me give this opportunity to Howard to introduce himself.

Hi, Howard.

I'm so glad that you're here.

I was so intrigued by your story for being the fastest reader.

How did you get started on that?

The short answer is I read faster than everyone else, but that's not the one you want.

I grew up in projects in Brooklyn.

It wasn't a great place to grow up.

It was West Side Story without the music and dancing.

I met Bernardo, we had a knife and he wasn't smiling.

I found the safest place in my neighborhood was the library.

And the worst thing in the library was a paper cut.

So I went there a lot and had college reading when I was 11.

So I went to the State University of New York in Binghamton when I was 17 to major in biology.

In the second half of my junior year, I got interested in how the brain works.

So I told the dean I wanted to be a psycho-biologist, not a psycholic biologist.

That's Frankenstein.

Psycho-biology is the biology of behavior.

He said, you haven't had any psych courses.

You only have one year left.

You'll have to do the whole four-year program in one year.

And you have to finish the bio program.

You'll have to take six science courses, two four-hour labs.

And to make it hard, I had three jobs.

I was working 18 hours a week.

He said, you're not smart enough.

And that's when I realized they never taught me how to learn in school.

They told me what to learn.

You hear a song once on the radio, you never forget it.

Then you read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

And the next day, you don't know any habits.

So there's got to be a way to learn the things in a book that you learn on the radio songs.

So I got up to 80 pages a minute.

Page and a half a second.

But slowed me down with turning the page because it takes time to move the page.

You actually get to read every...

We'll talk about that.

There's different kinds of reading.

There's elementary reading, there's inspectoral reading, there's analytical reading, there's syntopical reading.

They're all reading, but they're not the same.

We'll go into the differences in what I'm doing at each level.

I read 80 pages a minute.

I did the psych program in one year and I did the bio program.

Took the GRE, which is an SAT for graduate school.

Read 48 bio books in three nights, like biochemistry, self physiology, genetics.

I got three questions wrong.

So I was in the 99th percentile.

And then I wondered if it was me or the system.

So I took kids 11 to 15 how to do it.

They did a 30 chapter book in lifelong developmental psych, which is a sophomore course in a week.

18 kids took the AP test, 15 passed it.

So they basically finished college sophomore science course in a week when they were 11 to 15.

All from the training that you gave them.

What is it about the brain that is actually capable of doing something like that?

When you're driving in a car, you're reading the road at 70 miles an hour, front, the back, the left, the right.

You're watching your gauges.

You're watching your GPS.

You're bored.

You turn on the radio.

You're on the phone.

You're talking to people sitting next to you all at the same time.

And you're bored.

In a book, your average reading, the mode is about 200 words a minute.

And you're only reading one direction.

And you're lucky if you remember 10% the next day.

So how is it so easy to read in four directions at 70 miles an hour in a car, but only 200 words a minute in a book?

And the difference is in a car, everything's visual.

It's like a movie and you're processing data visually.

In a book, it's like someone's in back of your head talking one word at a time.

You're using your eyes to hear a book instead of see a book.

So it's the mix of the audio and the visual.

And so by learning to see more and hear less, you speed up.

We did a double blind study.

The average person could go 100 to 400 percent faster in a few hours with very good comprehension.

And we took 100 random people, all of them doubled or quadrupled, both doubled.

And it was Nelson Denny, which is a standardized test for speed and comprehension.

And make sure the second test didn't make them look smart because it was junior high and the first one was college.

We did a split test.

50 people did A and B and 50 did B and A.

Everyone doubled or quadrupled and they didn't lose their comprehension.

So we could say normal people could probably go 100 to 400 percent quicker with very, very good comprehension.

So earlier you spoke about how you were taught to learn.

What do you think is missing then in the school system that is not teaching us how to read this fast?

What to look for, how to know when you found it, how to read it faster, understand it when it confused you, how to remember it so you can use it when you need it later, how to stay in a good state of mind so you don't get nervous on an exam or speaking loud in class so you don't forget everything because you're nervous.

That's exactly what we talk about on this podcast, how to get over nerves if you're speaking in front of people.

So tell us more about that.

Well, that's what we'll do.

We're going to learn how to read faster, comprehend how to remember, how to stay in the right state.

We could actually talk about how to eliminate a negative emotional state.

That's another thing we could do.

When we're done, they'll be able to do the beginning.

That's what we do at Berg Learning.

We teach the whole thing.

So let's get started with the first one.

How do you read faster?

When we're done, pick a book you've read, preferably nonfiction.

So the only thing that could confuse you is how fast you're reading, not what you're reading.

You're not trying to learn calculus and speed reading at the same time.

So pick a book you already know, and read for a minute with a timer and see how far you get.

Normal.

Don't do anything different.

You have an honest measurement.

That's how far I can go in a minute, and then mark it off with a pen or a pencil.

And that's what I do now.

Now the magic.

Go to the second chapter.

Take your hand and go across one line at a time with your eyes following your hand.

And this is the key.

As fast as you can comprehend.

So as long as you know what you're reading, go quicker and quicker and quicker till you don't.

That's when it got too fast, because you should know what you're reading.

Slow down just enough so you comprehend.

And for five minutes, go as fast as you can understand.

Don't go slower than you can understand.

Don't go faster than you can understand.

Now go back to the first chapter and test yourself for a minute with your hand, moving your eye as fast as you can comprehend.

And you'll go past the mark that you did in the first minute, 20 to 40 percent, just doing that one change.

That's how we do it at Berg Learning.

It takes a few hours to go 100, 400 percent, but that's the very, very, very first step.

Okay, so the first one is the technique and how you comprehend.

And then what's the next one?

Nobody really wants to read fast.

I don't even like to read.

I like to learn.

To me, reading is a screwdriver.

It's a saw.

You don't get excited over the tool.

It's what you can...

Apprehension is much more important.

I was on MSNBC when it launched, and one of their first hosts was Dick Cavett.

He was famous in the 60s and 70s, sort of like Stephen Colbert is now, but a little more intellectual.

Not that Stephen isn't, but this guy was...

He wasn't a comedian.

He was more serious.

So we got to be friends, and after the show, we were talking, and he said he had interviewed Woody Allen, Evan LeMorge, which was the big speed reading program in the 60s and 70s.

And he said he read War and Peace, which is an enormous book, in five minutes.

He says, that's amazing, Woody.

What do you remember?

And Woody said, it's about the Russian Revolution.

That's all I remember.

And that was speed reading.

It's a math book.

It's a book about biology.

You didn't learn any math.

You didn't learn any biology.

You just knew that's what was in it.

That's a little inspectional reading when you get the big picture.

You didn't learn the details.

You learned what you would learn if you were going to learn it.

I trained the man who owned Everett Lourdes was Maurice Thompson Jr.

And he hired me to teach my system to his son.

He owned Everett Lourdes.

He said, you went past speed reading to speed learning, taking it in the 21st century.

And I'm going to show you one of the things I did.

I took graduate courses on how to teach reading.

And one of the key elements that makes things make sense when you're reading, it's called schemas.

I'm going to give you a passage with no schema.

It won't make any sense.

Then I'll read it a second time with a title, one word.

It has schema and everything will make sense.

So you can see how schema works.

This is the schemaless confusing text.

If possible, you could do it at home, but you could always go someplace else if it's necessary.

Beware of overdoing it.

This is a major mistake.

It may cost you quite a bit of money.

No idea what I'm talking about.

Now I'm going to read it again.

One word difference, the title, and everything will make sense.

Just from reading the title.

Just by reading, which has schema.

Laundry, this is an easy thing to do.

If possible, you could do it at home, but you could always go someplace else if it's necessary.

Beware of overdoing it.

This is a major mistake.

It may cost you quite a bit of money.

You're not confused anymore.

I'm teaching people where the clues are.

So when they're going two, three, four times faster, they know what to look for.

They know how to find it.

And it's making more sense, because they're using the brain's natural ability to comprehend.

That's what Berg Learning does.

We teach people how to think and understand, not just read fast, which is nothing.

You really want to know the information.

What's the next technique after that?

It doesn't help if you don't remember it when you need it later.

Of course.

And when talking about remembering, I wonder if you can also share which is a very important part of our social interactions.

A lot of us struggle with remembering people's names.

First, I'll show you how to remember a list.

There's many ways to remember.

Learning a language is different than, say, reading a newspaper, which is different than reading a novel.

In fact, there's no one way to read.

If you have a subject you know a lot about, you're going to read it differently than something you know nothing about or something that's boring or challenging.

Some people find, say, math very hard.

Some people find music very hard.

So a person, let's say a scientist reading an art book, would find it more challenging than an artist reading an art book, but the artist would find the bio book more challenging.

To say there's only one way to read, no, everyone's different, different backgrounds, different subjects that they excel in.

So there isn't one way.

How much do you need to know?

How much time do you have to learn it?

Have you learned any of this before?

Is it easy for you?

Is it challenging?

Is it boring?

Is it interesting?

All those things matter and they determine how you'll go about learning.

We're going to show you one memory technique.

There are many.

So I'm going to give you 10 things to remember, and I won't show you how, and you won't be able to.

Then I'll show you how, and you'll not only be able to, but backwards and forwards effortlessly in just a few minutes.

You want to remember pole, shoes, tricycle, car, glove, gun, dice, skate, cat, and bowling pins.

If you're a normal person, you know some of it, but if I said, give me all 10 backwards, you probably would say, I don't know.

I might remember one of them.

I'm still trying to remember the four words right.

That's the normal response.

Now I'm going to teach you how to remember it, and you'll know all of it effortlessly.

This is so easy.

Three-year-olds can do this.

You only remember 10% of what you read, but 90% of what you say and do.

This isn't a drill.

This is a tool.

You'll use it.

So when I ask you to say and do, do that to lock it in, and our audience as well, and you'll actually get all the benefits.

Now the ancient Greeks discovered a shortcut to learning a list.

Take a list you know already.

It's hanging in your brain, and hang the new list on it.

It takes less time.

I'm going to bet that you and everyone watching can count to 10, and we're going to use those 10 numbers that are hanging in your memory to learn 10 things very quickly.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Number one looks like a pole, like a flagpole.

One, what do you think of?

One is a?

Flagpole.

Two is shoes because she wears two shoes.

What's two?

Shoes.

One.

Perfect.

Three is a tricycle.

How many wheels on a tricycle?

Three.

What's three?

Tricycle.

What's two?

Shoes.

What's one?

Pole.

Four is a car.

There's four tires on a car.

Four is a car.

What's four?

Car.

Jump to two.

Shoes.

One.

Pole.

Three.

Tricycle.

Five is a glove.

How many fingers in a glove?

Five fingers in a glove.

What's five?

Glove.

Three.

Tricycle.

One.

Pole.

Doesn't matter which way we go.

It's easy now.

Six gum.

Four.

Car.

Shoes.

Nine.

Glove.

Three.

Tricycle.

One.

Pole.

Rhymesworth.

Eight skate like a roller skate.

What's eight?

Eight skate.

Six.

Four.

Car.

Shoes.

Nine is the number of lives a cat has.

Nine is a cat.

Nine.

Cat.

Seven.

Five.

Glove.

Three.

Tricycle.

Four.

Ten.

How many bowling pins are in a bowling lane?

Ten bowling pins.

Let's do the numbers now.

One.

Hole.

Two.

Shoes.

Three.

Tricycle.

Four.

Car.

Glove.

Six.

Bun.

Seven is lucky.

Nine.

Eight rides with.

Eight skate.

Nine is a.

Bowling pins.

There you go.

Now, here's how to use it.

It's a way to speed learn numbers.

So let's imagine you're in a hotel and the room is 314.

By the time you get to the lobby, you forget what room you're in.

Here's how to remember the numbers.

You make pictures out of them and make a movie.

Three is a tricycle.

One is a pole.

Four is a car.

A tricycle.

It's a pole on a car.

Tricycle.

What number?

Three.

It's a pole.

One.

On a car.

Four.

That's your room number.

That's my room number.

And it's pi in geometry, 3.14, to measure a circle.

So I teach it to kids for math, science and history things.

Business people, percentages, due date, and the zero, because numbers go from zero to nine.

That's it.

There's nothing but zero to nine.

You got one to nine is easy.

Ten is the zero.

So ten bollingtons is a zero.

Now you have a picture for every digit.

And when you have to remember them, make the pictures, make a movie that connects them, play the movie, and the numbers will come right back.

That is amazing.

That's what Berg Learning does.

We teach speed learning.

So that's the remembering part now.

Now that the pictures are the names, you wanted names.

That was the second half of your question.

Same process, you make pictures.

Let's say somebody's name is John.

So picture his head as a urinal, because that's a John, or his name is Robert.

See a mask, he's a robber.

Howard is a question mark on a piece of wood.

Question mark, how, wood.

And Berg is an iceberg.

So you have a piece of wood with a question mark on an iceberg.

And you have the same picture for every John, every Howard.

Don't change the picture, stick it on that part of their body.

And when you see them, the picture will remind you of their name.

That's a very interesting one.

Like, for instance, with me, my name is Roberta, and everybody usually goes to Roberta Fleck.

That would work, too.

But I could also say, this is like Robert with an A.

So you can see there's a robber, a girl robber.

A girl robber, OK.

So the bottom line is that the brain thinks in pictures.

If you associate pictures with everything, it's going to help you remember faster.

And read faster.

Your brain can process faster when it's seeing than when it's...

You're using your eyes to listen to a book.

That's not what eyes do.

Eyes are not for listening.

Hearing is analog.

When you see all the books behind me.

Yes.

Now imagine you read the title of each one, one at a time.

It would take a few hours to go through all those books just to read the titles.

But you see them instantly.

That's the difference.

Hearing is digital.

One word at a time.

Like music, you listen to a song, it takes a couple of minutes.

You see a painting, it's instant.

You don't take a couple of minutes to see a painting.

We're making a book into a song.

So it takes us longer to read because we're hearing instead of seeing.

And then how can we use this?

So this is more for the learning, the academic side of things.

How can we use the power of the brain for creating the life that we want, for changing our habits, improving and...

First, how do you improve your life?

I'll give you a very good example of my own life.

About 15 years ago, I was lecturing on cruise ships, and my wife wanted to go to Hawaii, and they had a trip to Hawaii, and I can go for free.

So I said, I'd like to do the Hawaii cruise.

They were, they don't want speed reading.

That's what I did.

So what do they want?

Because I wanted, my wife wants to go, right?

She said, well, they want someone to teach photography and video and Photoshop.

Well, she really wanted to go.

I said, I teach that too.

I didn't teach it, but I learned 80 times faster than normal.

And I knew if you read 10 books and you remember it, you know how to do something.

It's not one book, it's 10 books.

Right.

So I read 10 books on Photoshop in three hours.

I learned Photoshop.

The next day, I read 10 books on how to take pictures.

In three hours, I learned photography.

The next day, I read 10 books on video.

In three hours, I learned video.

So I went to the cruise and I'm like, please let these people not know anything about a camera.

My perfect audience, right?

The first person walks in, he says, I'm a professional photographer for 38 years.

I do it for a living.

I came to learn how to take pictures.

The second guy comes in, he's using Photoshop for five years.

He wants me to teach him advanced Photoshop.

And my wife's in the front crying because they said if I didn't do it, they'd throw us off the boat.

And they did throw people off the boat.

Not in the water, but when you got to shore.

So for a week I'm teaching this photographer how to take pictures.

The Photoshop guy.

You learned it for only three or five hours?

I read ten books.

You learn something.

It's not one book.

It was ten books.

I learned photography.

I knew how to take pictures.

I knew how to do video.

Do Photoshop.

And for a week, that's what I did.

I taught it and I had a free trip to Hawaii.

And at the end of the week, they're like, how many years did you study?

I learned it last week.

I wanted a free trip to Hawaii.

But I wasn't lying.

I knew I could do it.

I'll give you one more.

This is a better one.

Top four law firms on the world.

And it was 1985.

And I lost my job as a teacher because New York went bankrupt.

A friend of mine worked at a large law firm and they needed word processes, legal word processes.

In 1985, you work from midnight to six, they paid 25 an hour, 150 a night.

You had to know Xi-Rai, 80 hours to learn in a class.

And you had to be a legal word processor to get the job.

And I know I learned fast.

So my friend said, tell them, you know, with the Ohio, you immediately, they can't get anyone.

I told them I was an expert at Xi-Rai and legal word processing.

I knew I could do it.

I didn't have a book.

I had the help menu on the Xi-Rai.

So the first night using the help menu, I learned Xi-Rai on my own without training.

And then I figured out how to do legal word processing because it's all templates.

And I saw what the templates looked like and I learned how to make them.

So a week goes by and the head of my department calls me in the office.

It says, we're getting a lot of complaints about your work.

And I'm like, oh crap, busted.

This is the rest of it.

You're working too fast.

Faster than everyone here and you're only here a week.

You just got trained.

You're making them look bad.

How bad can they be?

I just learned this myself last week.

They went to university for how many years and lost school?

She told me to slow down or they'd have to let me go because I was working too fast.

And the other people didn't want to work that fast.

And I'm thinking, what an idiot.

You should be saying, you need to teach them what you're doing.

And I was like, sure, I can slow down.

That's not hard.

I was shocked.

I couldn't believe one, that I was faster than people who had 20 years.

I had no training.

I did it on my own.

I'm saying, hey, show everybody else your magic.

It was a fun job.

I did some pretty cool things.

I made good money.

Christmas.

Now, I'm Jewish.

They paid $75 an hour for 12 hours to do Christmas.

No one wanted to work.

By today, I have Hanukkah.

I can work Christmas.

You said, why would you want to learn?

Okay, imagine now, I had an 84-year-old, Ruth Lubin, 84, Miss Senior California.

She read three books in three hours the day after I taught her.

So I'm going to say a normal person could read at least a book in an hour.

So now imagine in your business, every day you learn a new skill.

You learn Photoshop tonight.

Tomorrow, you learn how to write headlines.

The next day, you learn how to close a sale.

Every day, you learn a new skill.

How much more would you make in a year from now if you learn 365 business skills and you did it in one year?

And then in 10 years, and in 20 years, and in 30 years, can you see, you want to know what's it going to do for you?

You tell me in a knowledge-based economy where you're learning a valuable skill every day that can help you make more money, where would you be in a year, 10 years, 20 years?

That's what I'm doing.

That's what Berg Learning is about.

Now for students, I have an 11-year-old who is a C student.

Normal person, not a genius.

They don't teach learning.

I taught him how to learn.

He finished high school at 15, got his two-year degree at 17, bachelor's at 19, master's in English at 21, English professor at 22.

Steven graduated from University of Texas Arlington at 16.

4.0, all A's, economics degree.

Goes to OU at 18, not for a BA, for a master's in math.

Graduates at 19 with a 397 GPA.

All A's, 1B.

You're getting a master's in math at 19 again.

He's now a professor at Yale.

Micah passed the bar at 19, college and law school at 19.

Brad did four-year college in six months.

He went to Thomas Edison, Rutgers online program.

They don't go by clock, they go by performance.

They let you take 90% of your degree on AP tests.

So he did one every day.

Five tests a week and one online class.

So in six months, he had his whole BA, learned Chinese in three weeks, sold his company when he was 40 for $38 million.

So when you ask me what good is it, that's what I teach.

Learning the skills that will help you be better at your work, it'll help your kids get higher grades and finish school and make a living and they'll live at you till they're 40.

I'm 72.

It helps your grandparents stay mentally fit.

As they get older, they don't turn into vegetables because they're using their brain.

The brain is functioning all the time.

That's what it's about.

Now you want to know about emotional control.

Remember, it was a complex question.

I remember the question.

So I thought I would answer the next part.

One of the most important skills you can learn is called emotional intelligence, self-control and getting along with people.

One of the big issues, I was teaching the US Special Forces at Fort Bragg and I taught them a lot about emotional intelligence.

I taught that to the Royal Toy Army in Bangkok and the Canadian Special Forces.

I also trained Fortune 500 companies.

The company I'm working with now, it's a $100 million a year company.

They want to be a billion dollar.

And I'm teaching them how to go from 100 million to a billion by making them smarter.

So they have skills that they didn't have that will take them up.

So one of the biggest challenges for the military is they go on a mission for three or four days, they don't sleep.

Now, if they don't remember what they learn, they can get killed.

How do you stay alert?

Now, you're taking a long test, like an SAT.

A lot of people three hours in, it's like, I'm bored, I want to go home.

And they stop focusing on the test.

They think about how they can get home faster.

Low is their score.

Let me show you to wake up.

So if you're taking a long class at night after work, you don't fall asleep or how to stay focused or the left side of the brain controls the right and the right side controls the left.

Do this with me.

Take your left hand, touch your right shoulder.

Take your right hand, touch your left shoulder.

Alternate.

So it's the Macarena without the music.

Now we're going to do the same thing with our knees.

Ideally we should stand, but with microphones.

So when you can stand, you're going to stand, but you can do this seated, but it's better standing.

Take your left hand, touch your right knee.

Right hand, touch your left knee.

When you're standing, your knee moves, so both sides of your brain are doing something.

Grab your thumb, your right thumb in your hand, and say this like you mean it.

I feel great.

Yes.

We'll do three sets of these, and when you're done, I'll show you how to instantly wake up whenever you need to, starting with the shoulder taps, ready at my speed.

Everyone do this with me.

One, two, three, four, five, six, knees, stand if you're home.

How do you feel?

I feel great.

I feel great.

Roberta, when you do this three times, nothing.

Now you probably would like something.

So let me show you how to do that.

The latest study show habits take 90 days, not 30 days.

Now you're in an important meeting.

Don't stand up and start tapping your shoulders.

Don't call an ambulance.

And say to yourself, I feel great.

Yes.

Every time you stimulated your brain, you went, I feel great.

Yes.

And when you grab your thumb and say, I feel great, you remember how you felt.

Every time you did that, you felt great, you woke up.

And that's why it's teaching these young people in the military how to wake up.

It's called an anchor.

In the same way, you can train people to focus, to concentrate, to relax, to elicit a state of problem-solving.

You create the state ahead of time, you create a trigger, and when they trigger it, that state comes back.

And now you can create emotional intelligence on the fly.

A good example of my, you're taking your road test, I'm your driving teacher, and you're ready for your test, and you fail.

Why did you fail?

I got nervous, it was a test.

What if I didn't just teach you to drive, but how to stay calm taking the test?

Would more of my students successfully finish the test?

Yes.

Would I get more referrals?

Yes.

Of course.

It's the, now in business, what state do people need to be in to do what you're telling them?

And what are you helping them to get to that state?

The reason people often fail at what you're telling them is they're in the wrong state of mind to do it the right way.

Or he didn't show them how to remember what you told them.

You gave them good information, but they didn't remember it when they needed it.

So what are you doing to help them remember what you tell them?

And how are you using language?

So when you talk to them, you use schema and they know what you're telling them.

You don't use words they don't understand, you use words that make it easy to understand.

So those are three business problems we just solved.

Use language that they understand, make it easy to remember what you tell them when they need it, and show them how to get in the right state of mind.

So when they're using it, it works.

Howard, thank you so much.

This has been such an eye-opener.

And before I let you go, where can people find information on Berg Learning?

berglearning.com is my website.

We have, I think, a 40% off right now.

And my email is howard at berglearning.com.

I'm president of my Rotary Club, that's our banner.

So I want to make sure you don't just buy something, but you actually learn it, that you can use it.

I want you to be able to make more money at work by learning skills that will help you be more productive and more successful or get a better job.

You don't make more money working more hours or working a second job.

You make more money by making more money.

And that means learning something you can charge more for.

So we teach how to read and learn how to write.

I mentioned we could do that in another interview, how to write a book in a day.

Yeah.

And how to be a genius.

These are all other skills.

So Berg Learning is reading, memory, writing and math, a variety of different payment plans to make it affordable.

And there's a 40% discount right now.

I want to thank you for having me.

Part of my mission.

I'm trying to make a difference.

Howard, thank you so much for being here.

I really appreciate you taking the time and we've learned so much already.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.