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Guinness World Record Holder ? | World’s Fastest Reader ? | Howard Berg Interview Howard Stephen Berg who is recognized as the world’s fastest reader according to the Guinness Book of World Records with over a 90% comprehension rate, thanks to the cutting edge accelerated learning techniques he has developed over his lifetime while working on ways to speed up reading for himself and for others. #Reading #Comprehension #Memory
howard
[00:00:00] Best Book Bids podcast brings you Howard Berg Guinness’s book of records, world’s fastest reader being featured over 1,100 radio and television programs. His Time Warner book, super Reading Secrets is in its 28 reprint. He’s not in. Gal Koby Reading program has sold over 650,000 copies. World’s fastest reader, Howard Berg.
Thank you for being on the. No worries. Now you’ve got an amazing story and we’re gonna deep dive into all things speed, reading, comprehension, memory, retention techniques and hacks and tips and tricks. But I want to know, take us back to your childhood using the library as a safe house to get away from the gangs.
Can you go back and tell us about how it all started from you? Grew up in the projects in East New York, Brooklyn. It wasn’t a great place to grow up. It was LA I was saying it’s West Side story without the music and dancing. I met Bernardo, literally had a knife and he wasn’t smiling and there was no dancing going on.
I found the [00:01:00] safest place in my neighborhood was the library Gang. Kids would rather be dead, apparently, than caught in a book. Rich environment and if you ever been in a bookstore, say the gang, kids are commonly better run out. So I read a lot. I had college reading when I was 11 as a result. Because that’s what I did.
It was by choice. It was, that was what you could do and not face a knife or a beating. I was hit with bats, I had knives in my throat. It was not a fun way to go up, but it gave me a super skill and it, and now I’m able to help people. So you just, sometimes the downside in our earlier part of life is something that makes us better later in.
Yeah, absolutely. I was gonna say, so thank God for thank God for where you grew up, because if you didn’t grow up where you grew up and you grew up in a safe neighborhood and never visited the library and started to read books you probably wouldn’t be where you are today. But take us back to yeah.
When you started to figure out that [00:02:00] you were learning differently and how school didn’t teach you how to learn and that you really taught yourself and how you really did four years in, in one year of college and how you started to teach other people. So when I was 17, I went to the State University of New York, Binghamton, which I believe is in the top 10 state universities in the country.
And I majored in biology the second half of my junior year interested in the brain and learning. So I went to the dean and I said, I want to be a. Biologist, not a psychotic biologist. That’s Frankenstein. A psychobiologist is the biology of behavior. And he said you haven’t had any psych courses.
You only have one year left. You don’t have to do a four year program in one year and take six science courses at the same time. Two four hour labs. Lab reports took 16. on a slide rule, he said, and I had three jobs. I was working 18 hours a week. He said, Franklin, you [00:03:00] are not smart enough. And that’s when they realized they never taught learning in school.
They tell you what to learn. They tell you why to learn. They tell you what happens when you don’t learn, but not why you hear a song on the radio once. And you never forget it. And then you read the seven Habits of Highly Effective People and the next day you forget what the habits are. I said, there’s gotta be a way to learn things that matter the way you learn the songs.
And there was, I got up to 80 pages a minute. I did this like program in one year. And then I finished the bio program except for physics and I took the gre, which is the graduate, s a t, in biology. So I reviewed like 48 books in three nights, like biochemistry, genetics, psychophysiology, plant systematics.
I wouldn’t consider that the lightest reading. I got three questions wrong. So I was in the 99th percentile. I got an 800. And then I wondered, was it just. The system is a [00:04:00] de between. You could do something or you could teach what you do. It’s not the same skill. And I had a school and I taught kids age 11 to 15.
What I was doing, we gave them a 30 chapter book in lifelong developmental psychology, and that’s a sophomore course in college, and they were 11 to 15. They did it in one week. and they took the cle, which is an AP test, 15 out of 18 passed sophomore college psych course in one week using the technique, which told me it isn’t just that I could do it, but I could teach it.
So now I have people around the country and the world, 11 year olds in college getting as. Consistently making a lot of adults unhappy. You’re 38 years old in a bio course and the 11 year old sitting next to you is running an A and you’re ready to see minus, and it doesn’t make you look [00:05:00] too good when that’s happening, but it’s like, Hey, don’t be angry at the 11 year old.
Learn what they learn and you’d be doing the same thing. It’s not that they’ve did anything wrong. . Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. I’m interested in how you so after that you taught for 10 years and science computers in New York City. How did you then start the business of the learning systems and when did you start realizing maybe it’s a career or how did the entrepreneurship or the business sort of start from there?
With Howard Berg, one systems say it was about 35. . I, it turned on to me. I, I was brought up in a blue collar environment everywhere. Where I lived was blue collar. So you were taught, go to school and get a job. That was your mindset. . You go to school and you get a job. Nobody talked about building a company, starting a business.
It wasn’t something blue collar people do. You get a job and you work, you need more money, you work more jobs, you need more money, you work more hours. That doesn’t make more money. [00:06:00] You learn new skills and you get paid more per hour. That’s how you make more money. So I’m looking around at. Who didn’t have my education, but they had beautiful homes and beautiful cars.
And I’m like how come? What? I know I don’t. And they do, and I’m looking they’re their own business and they’re making a lot more money owning a business than I’m making. Working for somebody else. So I started my co the program grows 65 million with Ingal Conan. Now, I didn’t get the 65 million, I’ll be perfectly honest.
I was the author. I got a royalty, which was okay. It would’ve been better to get the 65 million, but that’s not how royalties work. As and authors who write books don’t get every penny. The book generate the store makes money. The publisher makes money, a lot of people. But the last one that gets paid is the author, basically.
But that’s life. But [00:07:00] I did. and then I continued, I trained the US Special Forces at Fort Bragg, the royalty army in Bangkok, fortune 500 companies around the world. Now I’m a rotary president. I’m doing a lot of work in third world countries where they have no money and helping them cuz they can’t afford to pay me, like Malawi, which is the poorest country in the world.
I donated a program. to a school for young girls and also in Haiti, which is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. So I take the money I make from people who can afford to pay me, and I pay it forward to people who are in countries where they can’t. And I’m able to help more people.
Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. Congratulations for all your success and all the work you’ve done as well. It’s it’s really cool reading your bio. Talk to me how the Guinness Book of Records came about, that record and how you still, I think, hold the record and the way they did it had 10 different [00:08:00] reporters.
Can you tell the story about that really fascinating how they authenticated the world’s fastest reader? They require you to verify your record and not all the records in the book, for the most part have. Verification. It could be a newspaper article or a television video. That’s how most of them will validate the record.
I had 10, so I was in five different cities on television and the news the news department gave me something to read and tested me. So they’re usually pretty, pretty ethical. Like they said, you’re not gonna get five reporters in five cities willing to lie for you. They can’t all be your cousin or your best friend.
And then I did the same thing with five different newspapers and five other cities. So I had 10 different validations compared to one for the typical record. So it was a lot more validation than the typical record would. And that’s why they [00:09:00] accepted they hadn’t done speed reading before. And then the publisher that published the book got bought out by another publisher who decided it wasn’t a category they wanted to continue.
And that’s up to, that’s their book. They can do whatever they want. I didn’t care. I was already end. And as far as I’m concerned, no one else will ever get in. So that’s fine with me. But to be honest with you, the real interest in this is not the. , it’s the helping other people. The record gets me on shows, it helps me to get audiences, but that doesn’t help you.
If I read 80 pages a minute, what’s it do for you? Nothing but doubling or tripling your reading rate. Teaching you to learn or understand helping people make more money at work. Kids get higher grades. To me, that’s much more important. So it’s more of a hook to. in front of an audience cuz they’re interested.
But the real worth is what are you doing [00:10:00] for the people? Who cares that you could read fast? What can you do for me and I can do a lot and we’ll do it today? And that really, to me, is much more relevant than saying, look at me, I can read fast. . Yeah, absolutely. And I just wanted to share with my audience the story about how it all started.
But yeah, just a little bit of background to myself and my audience as well. Look, I’ve run the world’s largest free books summit platform. I’ve been reading, hundreds of books over over nearly 15, 16, 17 years now. And I’m a slow reader. Terrible reader. It, yeah. Fix that. I read with a pen.
I’ll fix that. I will fix. In fact, before we’re. You’ll send me an email at the end and I will send you a copy of my program as a gift and you’ll double the quadruple your leading rate and then you can bring me back, talk about you doing it instead of me doing it. Definitely. I wanna share that with moderns as well.
Yeah, I’ve been reading books for a long time. I read a book with, we’ve got a similar background with the with the white bookshelf with the books. I’d love to come and scroll through your books as a book lover as well. I was [00:11:00] watching that. I. Am I looking at the right ? So I’ve been reading books with a pen for my whole life, and that’s how I created summaries.
So basically find something I like, highlight it, type the notes up, create a summary, do the audio, do the video, put it online. And I’ll use the online as a hard drive so I don’t have to think or memorize the book. But my retention is terrible and I. And I read slow and I’m sure a lot of people out there as well struggle with.
I was never taught how to read. I was, reading consistently taught myself how to read, but how do we increase our speed? What are some of the tricks to increase our speed and better our comprehension? First I’m going to jump back to what you said originally and help you with that, and then I’ll go to the next question you just asked.
there’s only five things you need to read to learn, and if you know what those five things are, your notes will go much quicker. So what are the five things you actually have to learn? You have to learn the new [00:12:00] vocabulary. About 80, 85% of a new subject is learning the words. So if you’re in biology, there’s words like Aus, FIUs, and Turkish.
By notorious, those aren’t words that a normal. we’re Jews. They’re names of birds. But if you’re studying on anthology, there’s a lot of bird names. You’re gonna have to learn and you have to learn the Latin pronunciation. And it’s true of most subjects. There’s a language that revolved.
Legalese is a good one. Medical jargon. There’s another one. There’s a lot of vocabulary in every specialization. And so the first thing you need to learn are the. The second thing is who’s in the book and what did they do? A bio. Who’s George Washington? Why do I care? What does he matter?
Who’s Albert Einstein? What did he do? It’s name? Oh, you know who they are because they did something. But that’s why you look in the book and say, why is [00:13:00] this person in my book? What did they do? The third thing you look for is any number dates, statist or formula. , they’re important. Data is important, and why is it there and how is it relevant and how do I use it?
That’s the third thing I look for. The fourth thing you look for is if you’re in non-fiction, which I’m assuming a lot of you reading is non-fiction. Books tend to have chapters that have sections head. Subsections, sometimes sub subsections. You’re in a book on the census, so it’s just the ear and everything.
Following is the ear. It might go the middle bones, the three bones. It might have the ear drum. Those would be another section, but it’s the ear. And the next big one is the eyes. And it talks about the iris and the pupil and goes on to the different rods and cones. [00:14:00] Those are all subsections under the eye, but it’s not talking about hearing.
So look for the sections and subsections and ask yourself, what are the five takeaways if, what are the five main ideas? Sometimes there might be. Sometimes there might be less. It’s a short section, but I try to find the five big takeaways, the main concept that section is describing. And last thing, I look for questions and answers.
Now, in many textbooks, the questions are at the. , they give you 20, 30 questions on what you just read. That’s what they do in school. Answer the questions at the end of the social studies chapter or the science chapter. So what I tell people is read the questions first. What’s gonna happen is you’re gonna read the whole chapter, get to the questions, and not know [00:15:00] any answers.
Now you gotta go back and look for the answers, cuz you don’t know. , but if you knew what the questions were before you started to read, you’d have a purpose, which is find the answers to the questions. And when you see information that’s related to some of the questions, your brain’s gonna light up and say, that’s one of the things they want me to know at the end.
This is more important than things surrounding it that they’re not asking me any questions about. So if you know a reword and what it means, every person and what they did, Every number day statistic and formula and why it matters. The main concepts in every section and subsection and the questions and answers, you’re golden.
And I have a system for doing that. Very organized that helps you actually remember it as well. So that’s first of all, cuz you brought that up initially. Now I’m gonna go to your second question, which is really what you want to know [00:16:00] is how do you read. and how do you comprehend? So can we’ll skip, is that okay?
Okay. I try to share, I don’t want to just do a lecture I want would interact with you. So here’s a way to go 20, maybe 40% faster in three minutes. So pick a book you’ve read, preferably a non-fiction book that’s easy to understand and the reason. You want to know when you’re confused, it’s because you’re going too fast, not because the book’s too hard.
So if you’re reading a book on existentialist philosophy or quantum theory filled with formula and you have no idea what you’re reading, it’s proudly. Cause you’re not a physicist at mastered quantum theory or an existentialist philosopher, and you have no idea what you’re reading. That’s not a reading problem, that’s a comprehension problem.
So we want to make sure the only thing that could confuse you is your speed and not [00:17:00] the complexity of the book. So pick a book you’ve read and understood. And now read with a timer for one minute at the beginning of the first chapter, the way you normally would read. Do nothing special and see how far you go.
And at the end of the minute, take a pencil. And put a little bark and it shows you, that’s how far I read in a minute. Now you’ve done an assessment, a measurement. Perfect. Now go back to the second chapter, and here’s the magic, the secret source. 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 could comprehend, as long as you know what you’re reading. go faster and faster till you don’t, since you’re ready to know what’s in the book. The only reason you don’t know what you’re reading is it’s too fast. That’s how you [00:18:00] know it’s too fast. Slow down, just enough so you understand what you’re reading again, and for about five minutes, one line at a time.
Eyes following your hand, one line at a time, all the way across. Left to right. Five minutes. Now go back to the first chapter. Will you timed yourself and again, read for a minute with a timer with your hand doing what you just did as fast as you can comprehend, and that little mark that you put in the book during the first minute, you’ll blow past it by 20 to 40%.
Just doing that one single change. That’s how easy it. the speeder. So that’s the first part. And now if you’d I could talk about comprehension. Yeah. Just to st stop you on that for a sec. What’s the psychology behind the hand? Is it blocking out, like what’s going on with the brain?
What’s going on with the brain? The eye. Yeah. Good for [00:19:00] you. Nobody ever asked that, and that’s a good question. It’s a few things. First, it’s keeping the life focused. People when they read, let’s say you’re reading, some people read this way. The dog. The dog ran. The dog ran up. The dog ran up. The dog ran up the hill, the dog ran up the hill.
It’s visual regression. You’re constantly, they read one word, they read two words. They read three words. They read and they put it together. This is keeping your eye going. You don’t do. Some people have trouble focusing, so they’re reading and their eyes starts jumping like a squirrel. Oh, look, there’s a picture.
Oh look, there’s a table. Oh, look, there’s the, and they’re not staying focused on what they’re doing. Their eyes are erratic and skipping about the page. This is keeping your eye right where it belongs, and you’re scanning like a scanner with your brain. One [00:20:00] line at a time, sequentially all the way to the bottom of the page.
You’re not missing anything. You’re seeing everything. You’re keeping your brain engaged. And another thing that makes this good is there are many people who are esthetic and reading is boring because they’re not doing anything. They’re just sitting there staring at words that don’t involve any physical activity.
The kid aesthetics need to move. They can’t sit for that long. They get bored. So this is keeping their brains engaged and it’s an activity and it stimulates them, it keeps them focused, and that’s why you’re doing it. Okay? And it does speed you up. This is only the first step. It takes about an hour and a half to go, a hundred to 400% quicker, but this would be the very first thing you would.
And when you add [00:21:00] on the rest of the steps, you’re going to be reading even quicker. With even better comprehension, it has to start somewhere. What this does show you is yes, you could read faster in a very short amount of time and still know what you’re reading. So that’s what step one would be. All right.
Thank you for explaining that. Yeah. What’s step two? I’m hungry for this information because I need it more than the next thing you ask me is comprehension, and I’m glad you brought that up. Nobody wants to read fast. I don’t want to read fast. I wanted to learn six science courses at a very high level, very quickly.
It was learning. People wanna learn faster. . If all you do is rub the book and you don’t know what you read and you don’t understand anything and you can’t remember it, what’s the point? A lot of people think learning is a time or a page thing. If you ask a student, did you study? Most people, they’ll say, yeah, I studied.
How do you know? I read the book for five hours. Good for [00:22:00] you. I read 400 pages last night. Good for. , you don’t remember any of it. You didn’t understand a single thing you read, so what did you do? You rubbed pages for four hours and learned nothing. Learning is understanding the meaning and significance of what you’re reading and being able to use it when you actually need it.
If all you’re doing is putting in. and pages, which is how most people measure studying, doesn’t mean anything. I did a graduate course, an educational psychology. The book was 400 pages and I read it in seven hours, four times. The AP test that I took was seven hours, was six hours long. So I finished the test in 50 minutes.
I read the book in four in seven hours, so it’s seven hours and 50. I completely read the book and took the exam. I got a B plus on a graduate [00:23:00] level course for $65 in less than eight hours, and I said, why didn’t you get an A? I didn’t need an A. I was a teacher. I was building my company, like you said, and I didn’t have time to get the extra credits they required for my license.
To stay active. So I went with an AP test and at that time we used daytime as not like today we have electronic calendars and then I looked at next week the test is next week. It’s if you had an electronic thing, you’d have a an longer off two months before. It’s better start a study.
The test is coming up in eight weeks. I looked at the next week’s chores and like test is next week. I didn’t buy the book. So I ran into the store. I bought the book and I’m looking, it’s 400 pages and I’m look at my calendar. I have seven hours open for the week. That’s it. That’s all that was left.
I booked up the week, so I said I got seven hours. I better learn this book. So I learned the book in seven hours and I took the [00:24:00] test in 50 minutes. I needed to see minus for the credits. I couldn’t care less about the book. I wasn’t reading the book cuz I was interested in the. I was interested in four graduate credits to stay in my profession till I could build my business up enough to work on my own.
So my goal was not learning the book, it was getting four graduate credits. So if I needed to see minus and I gotta be, plus I fulfilled my goal. And this is another important point, Michael, what’s your purpose whenever you. , what’s your win? What do you actually need to learn? What is it that matters?
What’s significant learning a lot of garbage you’ll never need and never use is not a win cuz you’ll never learn the things you needed as a result. So have a purpose. With that in mind, I can now show you how to comprehend if that helps. Yeah, please. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Comprehension, which I think is far more important than [00:25:00] speed.
Most people would agree with that. You don’t want a pilot who bed read the book on doing landings. It says, I read the book on landings, but I don’t remember it. And then they go to land the plate, or a heart surgeon. Who sped read the book on surgery and he said, I read every page. I don’t remember any of it, but I read every page.
No, that’s not what you want. So one of the key elements in comprehension is a psychological concept. It’s called schema. A brain uses schematic clues to make sense at a. Text and rather than going to the technical definition, I’ll demonstrate it so you can actually see how it works. I’m going to read a passage that has no schema and you won’t have a clue what I’m talking about.
Cause it has no schema, so there’s no way for your brain to make sense of it. This is the Schemaless text. This is an [00:26:00] easy thing to do. If possible, you could do it at. 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.
There’s nothing for your brain to comprehend. It’s vague. Now I’m gonna read it again with a title one word. Your, you’re good. I am. So the title is laundry. This is an easy thing to. If possible, you could do it at home. 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. So by providing the schematic clue of laundry, the rest of the text starts to make sense. This is true in everything. You read this schema and by training people, not just read quickly, but where are these clues that make the text make sense?
To your unconscious brain to make it [00:27:00] meaningful. And by teaching the psychology the unconscious is doing so you’re consciously doing it. You’re not just going and be reading faster, but understanding as well or better. So that’s step two. What I got from that is it’s reading with purpose and going in with actually a purpose on why you’re reading as well.
And searching for things too. Not just reading for the sake of reading things and slowly going through, but you are like a bit of a detective. It’s like you’re reading a Where’s Wally book? You’re looking for Wally. You looking for the dog, you looking for, they’ve got all the different images.
You, you go in there with a purpose through there as well and understand the structure of the, of how the author actually writes or how the book lays out as well. I think that’s very important as well. Talk to me about it a little bit about, yes, we’ve got reading faster comprehension as well. What about increasing memory and recall?
What are some things we can do to help us with memory recall? There are many. . There are many different ways to memorize. No one way works for [00:28:00] everyone in the same, in every subject. So let’s say you’re a person who’s good at learning languages, so you are going to use a different tool than someone who has trouble learning languages or, I’m good at science and math.
I’m gonna use a different tool in, someone was trouble with science in math. So there’s always subjects you’re better at. A guitar player will do better in a music book than a neuro b. and the neurobiologists better in a neurobiology book than the guitar player because of their aptitude, background experience schema, what they know already.
So there’s no one way, but I’m going to give you a system that’s good for learning a list just as a demonstration of how quickly the brain can learn a lot of data using a brain-based learning strategy. There’s many of them in the program. . And by the way, just wanna say if people go to Berg learning.com, they can see all of the stuff and we let them try it [00:29:00] risk free.
So let me give you a list of 10 things to learn. You wanna remember pole shoes, tricycle, car glove, gun dice, skate cat and bowling pins. Now if you’re a normal person, and I said give me the list backwards, you look at me and say back. I’m not sure I know it forwards, but you will in three minutes know the whole list effortlessly.
In fact, this is so easy. Three year old children do this consistently. I work with preschool kids occasionally as a rotary person. I go to kindergarten in Pre-K and I teach this to them. They learn it. So let’s see how that happens. So you have 10 things to learn. The ancient Greeks discovered a shortcut for learning a list.
Take a list that you know it’s hanging in your memory. Like hangers hang in closets. And what do you do with hangers? [00:30:00] You hang things on them. It’s easier to hang new information on something, then start from scratch and I’m gonna bet Michael. And all of your audience that are great readers can count to 10.
I feel very confident that this is a fact and not a supposition, and we’re going to use those 10 numbers that you know already to learn those 10 items super fast, backwards, end forward, starting with the number one. The number one looks like a pole, like a flag pole or a light pole. So when I say. , you say poll.
What’s one? Poll by the way, saying it’s important you remember 10% of what you read and 90% of what you say and do. This is not a drill. This is a tool I’m teaching you. You will use it for the rest of your life and so will our audience. The number two is shoes. You wear two shoes. What’s two shoes? Always one pole [00:31:00] good.
Three is a tricycle. Three wheels on a tricycle. What’s three pole? Do my way. Don’t do it your way because I’m doing it for me. What’s three pole shoes? Tricycle, just starting three. Tricycle, two. Bicycle. Two. Oh, sorry. Pole sh pole shoes and tricycle. What’s, don’t do that. What’s two? Shoes. What’s one pole?
Very important when you’re learning. Follow instructions. You’re jumping into a different mindset than the one I’m doing, so it’s not that you’re wrong, but you’ll learn it better if you go the way I’m going, if that makes sense. Got it. No, I got it. Yeah I got what you’re saying now. Easy. I’m just trying to help.
I’m not trying to be critical. Four is a car. There’s four tires on a car. What’s four car? What’s two? Choose what’s one pole? What’s three? Tropical. Jumped all over. See? Different than what you were doing. Did it make a difference? No, because your brain’s learning. Five is a [00:32:00] glove. Five fingers in a glove.
What’s five gloves? Three. Tricycle. What’s one? Oh. Getting much smarter now. Six Gun. When I lived in Texas, they loved. Six. Gun what? Six gun. Like a cowboy with a six gun. Six gun. What was four? Four was car. What was two? Shoes. Lucky seven in dice. Lucky seven in dice What? Seven dice. What was five glove?
Three Prole, one. Pole rhymes work. Eight. Skate. Eight. Skate. Say eight. Skate. Eight. Skate. What’s eight? Gate six. What did they love in Texas? Gun. Four. Car. Two shoes. You’re looking for your pictures. I’m watching your eyes. Okay. Nine as a cat. Nine lives. Nine as a cat. What’s nine? Cat? Lucky seven in dice.
Five glove, three tricycle, one pole. 10 bowling [00:33:00] pins in an. 10 bowling pins. What’s 10 bowling pins? What’s one pole? What’s two shoes? What’s three tricycle? What’s four car? What’s five? Glove six gun. Lucky. Seven dice. Eight rhymes with my brain just stopped. Skate. Sorry. Skate. Yep. Gate. That’s okay. That’s how you learn by rehears.
Nine, one has nine lies, cat and 10 the game of bowling pins. That’s it. Now here’s how you use it. I’m gonna show you how to use this to study. This is a way to speed learn numbers, which are tricky. Numbers are hard to remember. Let’s imagine you’re in a hotel and your room numbers is 3 1 4, but it’s the time you get to the lobby.
You forgot what room you were in. Here’s how to remember your room. Number three is a tricycle. . One is a car, it’s a pole, and four is a car. So I picture a tricycle hits a pole on a car. [00:34:00] Picture that as a movie, a tricycle hits a pole on a car. Tricycle what number Three pole. One on a car. Four. That’s your hotel room.
Tricycle pole car. 314 4. It’s also pie when you study geometry. 3.14 to measure circle. and so kids can use it to learn numbers, dates, statistics. You can learn it for business, for room numbers, percentages due dates. The zero is the 10 bowling pins, so you have a zero to 10 now, cause each digit is zero to nine, plus the one to nine plus the zero.
So now you have a picture for every digit. You make a picture out of each number. . You make a movie connecting each object, you play the movie, the number comes right back. That’s a way to memorize. Why do I get taught this at school? Actually know the answer. I worked in a school in Brooklyn. 2% graduated when I got there, 2%, and I [00:35:00] told the principal I could teach them how to learn.
I’m not gonna get you to a hundred percent. You got 2% graduating, but I could certainly improve your numbers. 20%, 30% better than 2%, right? And he looked at me and said, it’s not in the curriculum. You can’t teach it. So what am I gonna say is the principal, it’s a fine. So I’m teaching biology and one of my students in the biology class holds up the biology book, which I gave him, is I don’t know how to do the home.
I can’t find the answers to the questions. Can you help me? I said, sure. So I’m showing him how to find the questions and the answers in the book that he’s doing his homework in, that I’m teaching. And the principal comes in and he says, what are you doing? And I told him, he asked me to show him how to find the answers to the questions in the book for home.
I don’t pay you to do that. I told you not to teach learning. You didn’t [00:36:00] listen. And he wrote down that I wasn’t working because I wasn’t doing biology. I was teaching learning and I wasn’t being paid to do that. So why wasn’t doing my job as a teacher cuz I was helping kids learn instead of teaching biology.
It was the biology book. It was the biology homework. And I was the biology teacher and they asked me to. But that was wrong. That’s what the schools are doing. You want to know? That’s they, by the way. Happy ending. I quit after that cuz I couldn’t live with myself, dumbing people down. And the next year they closed the school because 2% graduated and they said, what’s the point of keeping this place open?
You have a 98% failure rate. So there was a comic repercussion. For not letting me help, but it wasn’t my fault. And then I went on and we made 65 million with my program. So it felt okay. Your school got closed. [00:37:00] My, my thing made 65 million. I feel vindicated . That’s a great story, Howard. That’s a great story.
And look, it’s not about speed reading, it’s not about comprehension as well. One of the things I’ve heard you talk about as well is people reading and about emotional intelligence as well. Can you expand on any of those subjects as well? Yeah, those are all connect. I could teach. I could show you to read people if you’d like.
Please. Yeah. People people have everything you need, and at the end of the day, take away everything you left with people, so people supersede everything. Yeah. What if you could tell when people are lying, would that be a help? Yeah, please. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I’m gonna teach you a trick. Okay. Now, there is a, if you were to, if I asked you to draw a timeline, an arrow going from past the future, 90% of the people would draw an arrow going from left to pointing to the right.
The right would be the future, and the left would be the past. That’s 90%, 10% would draw it the other way. Most of those are lefties. But [00:38:00] 90% this is a fact. So this is important. Cause 10% go the other way. And I’m gonna show you how to judge that now. So I was working with a Supreme Court judge in Toronto and I taught her this technique cuz she had a dilemma.
Husband and wife are getting divorced. The wife accused the husband of doing something awful to the baby and if she was right, the judge would never let him see the baby again. But she suspected the wife was bitter about the divorce. He hadn’t done it. And what if he didn’t do it? And she doesn’t let her ever see the baby cuz of her being bitter.
What’s worse hurting him or the baby? She didn’t know what to do. I said he had to tell her she’s lying. Your. Have a temporal pattern, okay? When you are looking up to the left, you’re remembering things you saw. Now remember, we’re in mirror images. When I look at you, this is my left. Your left is you. You shake hands.
It’s the other way. So when you’re looking up to the left, you’re [00:39:00] remembering things you saw. When you’re looking up to the right, you’re imagining things you’d like to see. Not what’s happening, but, and by the way, this works with writing. If you wanted to remember when you’re writing and you wanna remember something that you’ve learned, you look up to the left and you remember something you saw in a book.
If you look up to the right, you could start writing something new. So I said, here’s what you want to do. Ask this woman, what does the furniture her living room look like, and watch your eyes. And they go up to the left. She’s remembering where the furniture is very. , what’s the furniture in your bedroom look like?
She looks up to the left and she’s describing all the furniture in the room. I said, good. Now ask her what she saw her husband do to the baby. Her eyes go up to the right where she invents. Where she invents. And how do you know? Cuz she watched her horizon. Remember, 10% go the other way. So you have to watch where their eyes go when you’re asking about the [00:40:00] past, and most of them will go up to the left.
If they go up to the right, then it’s the. , but Muslim will go up to the left and you could use this where someone gives you an objection in business. I can’t buy your program. My wife won’t let me. And you ask them a few questions. . And then you say, what? And his eyes go the other way. When you ask him about his wife, it’s her saying no.
So you start telling the truth. He’s inventing that. You can see when people are being honest and dishonest by watching their eye patterns. Wow. So first off, test test recall and facts. First easy questions. And then throw them the curve ball and see what the true objection is, or imagination. Yeah.
stay where their eyes go and to suddenly go in the opposite way. The pattern just change for no reason. Every time you asked them about something, they definitely saw and knew. They looked up here and then you asked them about the thing you really wanted to know, and they looked up here, why? Why are they looking the other way?
Because it’s not [00:41:00] true and they’re inventing it. What happened in the court case? I didn’t. I didn’t get to see her. But I did give her the tool to do. I know she was competent enough to use it and it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t involved in the court itself. I was wor I, she was one of my students. I actually took my reading program and I was in Toronto and she invited me to her home.
and she had a party and I was like the guest of honor meeting all her friends. And she then she was like sharing me. She was upset about this upcoming case and asked if I could help. So I told her what I thought would help. I says, watch her eyes. Said, see what she does and you’ll have a good reason to be suspicious, says the fds.
Four or five questions. She kept doing this with her eyes, and then when you asked about the baby, she went there. You just got your answer. Now if she looks up there about the baby, then she’s telling you the truth and the husband did it, and [00:42:00] now you’ll know. But one way or the other, you’ll find out who’s lying?
Her or the husband. Yeah definitely. I’d want I’m very interested to know the accuracy of that, but I’m sure it’s very high. But CIA uses it, ceases, uses it in Canada. It’s not admissible in court as. because it’s like a lie detector. It can’t be used in a courtroom. But if, let’s say you got a number of suspects and you didn’t have an unlimited manpower, the one that was looking the wrong way would be the most suspicious, the one to put your manpower on.
And in business it helps you to see if people are being. Frank and honest with you in negotiating, or if they’re trying to mis misdirect you, it gives you a insight. One thing I’ve heard you talk about, and I wanna see how this ties in, you talk about emotional intelligence as well. How does this tie into to learning, reading and all that stuff as well?
Yeah. So important. Okay. You’re taking a test and you don’t know some answers. You get nervous and you can’t think [00:43:00] anymore. You start getting anxious, you start getting depressed, and all the material that you. disappears because in that emotional state, your brain can’t recall what you learned and that’s a very common problem people experience in life.
So I’m teaching them how to stay focused and calm. One of the things they taught the special forces was this, they’re up sometimes two, three days, four days in a row, no sleep, and things aren’t going quite the way they planned. . If they don’t remember what they were trained on, they could get killed, they could die.
And so I’m teaching them how to stay awake, how to stay alert. I could show you how to do that if you’d like. Yeah, please. Yeah, they’ll be good. Yeah. Okay, so we know the left side of the brain controls the right and the right, the left. So ideally we should do this standing, but because we got our microphones, we’ll do it seated.
But [00:44:00] those watching us do it standing, you’ll get a better outcome. We know the left side, we take our left hand, touch your right shoulder, then your right hand touch, your left alternating. So it’s like the Macarena without the music, but it’s a left brain, right brain. So you’re stimulating your left and then your right.
Same thing if you’re standing left hand to right knee, right hand to left. To the knee opposite. Knee. Opposite knee. And when you’re standing, the knee moves too. So both sides of your brain are doing something and grab your thumb in your hand like I am. And say this like you mean it. I feel great. Oh, I feel right.
Yes. Yes. Like he’s doing with passion like Michael. Oh, I feel great. That’s gonna be how you feel there. I feel great. No, I feel great. You gotta really mean it. Exactly. We’re gonna do three sets of these. And if you’re watching this and not us, but our mics, you should stand starting with the shoulder taps [00:45:00] my speed.
Ready? 1, 2, 3, 4. Slow down, five, six knee taps. 1, 2, 3. 4, 5, 6. How do you feel? I feel great. Yes? Yes. Little faster this time. Starting your shoulders ready? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Knees. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. How do you feel? I feel great. Yes. Yes. This time as fast as you can go. And if you’re standing, don’t get too close to the desk.
You’ll bang your knees. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. How do you feel? I feel great. Yes? Yes. Now, you know what happens when you do this three times? Nothing . I’ll show you how to make it do something. Remember Pavlo? He rang a belly. He fed a dog. He rang Abel. He fed a dog. That’s our [00:46:00] rotary bell. The president, he rang a bell and the dog.
You want to feel great. So the latest studies show habits take 90 days, not 30. So every day, slow, medium, fast. I feel great. Yes, I feel great. Yes. Every time you do that, you felt better cuz you woke your brain up. Now you’re in an important business meeting or an exam. You don’t wanna stand up in the meeting, start tapping your shoulders.
They’ll call an ambulance. They’ll think something’s very wrong. You grab your. And you say to yourself, I feel great. Yes. Remember Pavlov with the dog? He rang a bell. The dog drew eventually. So this is your bell. I feel great. Yes. And you don’t say it out loud. And when your brain hears that, it remembers all the times you did this and woke up and you state changes instantly.
And that’s what I was teaching these special forces. And there’s a number of [00:47:00] states, relax. Focus concentration by teaching them how to elicit the state and then anchor that state to a conditioned stimulus so they could wake up whenever they wanted to. And that’s what I’m doing. Yeah, that’s fantastic.
It’s funny that people go to the gym and they know they. They do the workout, they’re gonna get a pump. Yeah. The muscles are gonna fill up with blood. They’re gonna feel great and they get that high. But we don’t treat our days like these little techniques where we can get ourselves into state.
And I guess, Tony Robbins and all the other people talk about this as well, but just simple things like that. I think that’s something that’s someone can do anywhere, anytime, and just. Yeah, I think I’m gonna incorporate that, that as well. Howard, thank you for your time. Thanks for being on the show.
Can I give my website? Yeah, please. Yeah. I was gonna say, where can people follow you and where can people find out more about yourself and get your programs? Go to Berg Learning like my name, b e r g.com. I believe there’s a special right now if they go. A discount on the program, Berg [00:48:00] learning.com.
It’s a reading program. It’ll double the quadruple their reading rate, show them what to look for, how to know when they found it, how to analyze it, when they’re confused, how to remember it, when they need to use it, how to stay in state so they don’t. Get emotional and lose all that information. There’s a writing program, we haven’t done that, but I wrote a book in five hours, last book, and I teach people writing and reading’s the same reading’s, input, writing’s, output.
And as you begin better at writing, you’d be better at reading cuz you understand what writers are doing to share data and you’re learning new ways to do it when you’re reading other people’s. Memory, I showed you one technique. There’s dozens and then there’s speed math. So Howard Burg, so it’s Berg learning.com.
We offer a total satisfaction guarantee, so you have nothing to lose. It’s great for business people. It helps your kids do better in [00:49:00] school. You can do this with your kids. You make more money, they get higher grades, and grandma and grandpa can use it to stay mentally fit. I’m 70. . So if you keep using your brain and you keep stimulating your brain, age is a meaningless thing.
It’s just you get old when you don’t do anything and you start young at your age and you never stop you. It won’t matter how old you are, you’ll still be young at all. I’m still swimming half a mile, three, four times a week. I lift weights, I ride my bike. I don’t stop. Everyone around me is like a. They’re hobbling around.
They can barely move, but I never stopped and that’s, I had an 84 year old Ruth Lubin read three books in three hours the day after I taught. Her age is not a variable here. I had a 92 year old read a hundred percent faster in four hours. So you’re not too old. I’m gonna say my youngest was eight and that was in [00:50:00] Toronto.
She read five seconds of page. So if you’re between eight and 92, what I’m assuming most of you are you’re in the sweet spot. . Abso absolutely. The only thing I’ve got to say is pole shoes, tricycle car, glove gun dice. I’m stuck at number eight though. What is number? Eight? Eight? Skate. Skate. Skate.
That’s right. Cat. And and pins Temping. Bowling pins. And send me your email. Yeah, I’ll do that. Before you’re done, after we’re done, and I will set you up online with the program as a thank you gift and you’ll be doing it. You won’t be hearing about it. You’ll experience it firsthand, and you’ll say, wow, everything this guy said he could teach me.
I’m doing it. And by the way, you got some of the same books as me. I’m looking at your books. Yeah, I know. It’s crazy, isn’t it? I thought I was looking at my bookshelf. I was like, how could that be? I’m sure you’ve got better comprehension than me, but Howard, thank you again for being on [00:51:00] the show and tomorrow audience checking stuff out some fantastic stuff.
So keep on doing what you’re doing and to speaking to you soon. Okay. Thank you. I see Larry North’s book, that’s, he’s a friend of mine. I’ll check. All right, let me grab it. One sec. All right. One.
Guinness World Record Holder ? | World’s Fastest Reader ? | Howard Berg Interview Howard Stephen Berg who is recognized as the world’s fastest reader according to the Guinness Book of World Records with over a 90% comprehension rate, thanks to the cutting edge accelerated learning techniques he has developed over his lifetime while working on ways to speed up reading for himself and for others. #Reading #Comprehension #Memory
