A 25 year study of U.S. Readers They HATE Reading! The smarter, richer and more successful on the economic ladder the greater the number admit they hate reading. A quarter-century of studying the learning-skills of executives and professionals, CEOs, chairmen of university-departments, attorneys and physicians - PhDs in industry and at the university we conclude the more reading they do the greater their dislike for this form of information-processing. They complain it requires too much effort to obtain the required result of information. They prefer oral-reports, visual-presentations, and summaries by subordinates. A good graph or flow-chart is worth ten-books, was agreed to by 50-to-1 in the executive-suite. Why? They are too-smart to operate at a snails pace to absorb the written word. They find their mind wanders while reading (because they read so slowly). Instead of concentrating on the authors ideas, these top executives and professionals are problem-solving sticky-situations, rehearsing presentations, and developing original-strategies to reach their goals. The typical college graduate, executive and professional, the multimillionaire including the chairman-of-the-board blow-off reading as a poor return-on-investment. Measured as a CBA Cost-Benefit-Analysis it fails the test. How Do They Avoid Reading? Great leaders, executives and successful professionals excel at grasping the Big-Picture the salient-points, the gist and essence of an argument or idea. They track it when they hear it they capture it when they see it. Students at college and graduate-school are oblivious to the fact that professors and lecturers speak at 125 words per minutes, while they can take written-notes at only twenty-five words-per-minute. They play a no-win game. Using a tape recorder to retain the professors ideas makes sitting in class a complete waste-of-time. Secret of Making Reading Payoff When we add our peripheral-vision instead of exclusively relying on our foveal (sharpest), vision we move from the speed-of-speech (175-250 words-per-minute), to the speed-of-sight 750-1200 words-per-minute. Now for the first-time,we can read-and-remember information at a speed that creates personal peak-performances, puts us in-the-zone, and in-the-flow. The opposite of snailing, using our foveal-vision (cones), to read as we were taught in the third-grade is adding to it the rods the other photoreceptors forwarding visual information to our optic-nerve and brain. Speed Reading uses the RasterMaster as a visual-pacer to make use of our instinct the eyes-follow-a-moving-object and link to the law of entrainment,operating in-sync to speedup our reading-skills. The aforementioned requires the prominent use of our peripheral-vision to triple our reading speed and add up to 40% to our learning strategies. Endwords Our brain is powered by a network of neurons that discharge waves of electrical energy in various frequencies and patterns. We call these vibrational-frequencies - brainwaves. Since 1939 they are measurable using EEG, and today we use fMRIs, PET, and a SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computerized Tomography). When we move from Beta Hz (cycles-per-second), to Alpha Hz or Theta Hz, our brain accesses peak-performance, creativity and analytical breakthroughs. How? Breathing exercises, chanting mantras, drumbeating, visual-stimuli, music and ritualistic dances can help move our brainwaves into different channels which help improve up to 40% - both memory and learning. Why do you secretly dislike reading? Youre too-smart, and know your snailing-skills are a waste-of-time without learning to use your peripheral-vision. It is time to take action. We do not see things as they are we see everything as we are. The Talmud Dont we often miss things in plain-sight? We are distracted by our state-of-mind, mood and attitude. Have you ever reread a book, article or report and been amazed of the brilliant ideas you totally missed the first-time? Did the book change? Would it improve your career if you added reading and remembering three (3) books, articles and reports in the time your peers could hardly finish one? See ya, copyright 2005
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org
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