How To Read Faster & Speed Reading | Jim Kwik

Bite-sized brain hacks for busy people who want to learn faster and achieve more. I'm your coach, Jim Kwik. Free your mind. Let's imagine if we could access 100% of our brain's capacity. I wasn't high, wasn't wired, just clear. I knew what I needed to do and how to do it. I know kung fu. Show me. Welcome back. How do you read faster and comprehend? This is This is such a hot topic that many of our Kwik Brains are asking about in our private Facebook community. If you haven't yet, make sure you join us there for show notes, live free trainings, and to submit your burning questions for me to answer in future episodes. Now, speaking of that, I want to welcome all our new subscribers, and I really appreciate all the great reviews. It's allowed us to be able to share these sessions with many more people, so thank you. Many of you know I grew up with a brain injury and I had severe learning challenges, and one of the biggest challenges I had— it actually took me an extra few years to learn how to read. And so I love the topic that we're going to talk about here. And with your reviews, I read, or maybe I should say I speed read every single one of them. And that really is the lesson I have for you today. How do you read faster with the same or even better comprehension? So let me start by asking you a question. Are you overloaded with too much to read and too little time? I mean, does it feel like you're trying to take a sip of water out of a fire hose? Do you get more than 10 emails in a day? And you're thinking, Jim, I probably got 10 emails since this podcast started like 2 minutes ago. Do you have books on your shelf that you haven't read yet? You go out there and buy self-help books, but they sit on the shelf and it becomes shelf-help and not self-help, right? We live in an information age where knowledge is not only power, it's profit. And I don't just mean financial profit, that's obvious. The faster you could learn, the faster you could earn. But I also mean the treasures in every area of your life, your relationships, your health, your career, everything that's important to you to be able to have greater impact, greater influence, greater income, greater intelligence, whatever it is your heart's desire. So when I ask audiences or teams how much time they spend processing information, most people say it's approximately 4 or more hours a day. I mean, think about all the information you have to process, all the websites, all the emails, the business plans, The books, the newspapers, the magazines, everything you're learning. I mean, so much of it comes through the written word. Imagine you could double your reading speed and save 2 hours a day. What's 2 hours a day over the course of a year? It's 730 hours. Or let's say you just save 1 hour a day. 1 hour a day over the course of a year is how many hours? Good. It's 365. 365. It's a large number. Divide that by 40. Like a 40-hour work week. 40-hour work week, how many weeks is that? That's about 9 weeks. 9 weeks, that's 2 months of productivity you get back just saving 1 hour a day. And that's the power of learning how to read faster. The challenge though is traditional speed reading is long associated with skimming or skipping words or just getting the gist of what you read. Now, for me, I trained some Remarkable individuals in education, in technology, in corporate America, in philanthropy, in entertainment, attorneys and financial advisors and doctors. I mean, do you want your doctor just to get the gist of what she's reading? Of course not. So it doesn't make sense to read something unless you can understand it and retain it. And maybe because I grew up with learning challenges and I started out doing memory training that I feel like it doesn't make sense to read something unless you're going to be able to absorb it and be able to apply it towards something else. So that's what this session is really all about. Now, as we get started here, I'm going to give you a couple exercises. You don't have to do it during this coaching session because I don't want to take the time because it's about Kwik. You listen at your own time. But the first assignment I'm going to ask you to do— and now remember, going back to active— and I would go back if you haven't listened to previous episodes. This is like an academy. So this is not just a podcast. This is a coaching series. And so I would go back and listen to the one on how to learn anything If you want to read something faster, I would definitely listen to the one on how to read 1 book a week or 52 books a year without speed reading. There's some golden nuggets in there, such great reviews on those. And now, so here's the assignment. What I want you to do is in order to be able to improve something, you have to be able to measure it, right? In order to be able to manage it, you have to be able to measure it. So I'm going to give you a quick brain hack on how to read faster and how to improve your focus, but how are you going to know if it works? Because you need a starting point. And so what I want you to do is grab a book and I want you to time yourself to read for 60 seconds. And this is important to do these exercises. Remember, knowledge is not power, it's only potential power. It only becomes power when you actually utilize it. So what I want you to do is I want you to read for 60 seconds. 60 seconds. And I want you to, when you're done, count the number of lines that you just read. So you could put a mark in the margin where you start, go for 60 seconds, stop it, Put a little mark in the margin, and then count the number of lines. Alright? And that's gonna be your base rate. Now, if you're gonna do it now, you can actually pause it and go and do that now. Now, if you're still listening, welcome back. Whether you did the exercise or not, remember to do that first. Now, I'm gonna give you a tip, a brain hack on how to take that number and improve it about 25%, 50%. Some of you will actually double, 100%, that current rate. Now, that's your lines per minute. If you wanna do your words per minute, all you have to do is do the average of the number of words there are per line and then multiply that by that lines per minute. Now, if that was too fast, go back and listen to the episode on how to read 1 book a week, 52 books a year. And by the way, what books would you read if you could read 52 books a year? I mean, what I love about reading is because if you're listening to this, you value your time, right? That's the whole point. Your 2 greatest assets you have is your brain, which is your greatest wealth-building device Ever, it creates everything in your world, and it's your time because your time is the thing you can't get back. So even better than time management, all you have to do is look at your day and see where you're spending the most time and see if you could become more effective and efficient at that. That's what I consider quick reading. Now, going back to this, I'm gonna share with you, we talked about reading. There's 2 parts of reading, reading speed and reading comprehension, and it doesn't make sense to have one without the other. So I'm gonna tell you just really quickly a couple obstacles that get in the way of you reading faster. And then your brain tip for the day. Here we go. The first obstacle to effective reading, first of all, is this thing called lack of education. Are you born with the ability to read? No, of course not. It's not like you were born and you just start reading magazines in the, in the waiting room, right? Of course not. So it's a skill, and like all skills and talents, it could be developed through proper training. Yet when was the last time you took a class called reading? How old were you? Maybe 6, 7, 8 years old. Let me ask you a question. Has the difficulty and the demand increased since you were a child? A little bit or a lot? A whole lot. But most people still read at that same skill level. Does that make sense? And so the first thing is get training. And so this is going to help you with the training. Obviously, a lot of you are students of ours at kwiklearning.com where we have speed reading course and we have students in over 150 countries. Get the proper training. The second obstacle to effective reading is something you could definitely relate to, lack of focus. Lack of focus. Have you ever read a page in a book, got to the end and just forgot what you just read? And you go back and you reread what you just read and you still don't know what you just read? And what happened? Where'd it go? It's your focus, right? How many people read something and you just can't concentrate? So that's a key part. You know, there's a myth out there and we're gonna go do numerous episodes on focus and concentration. So make sure you subscribe. But there's a myth out there that says that Faster readers have less comprehension. Now I could tell you, we have students all around the world, and I could tell you often the fastest readers have the best comprehension because they have the best focus. Here's what I'm saying. Your brain is this incredible supercomputer, but when you read, you feed this supercomputer one word at a time. I can't even speak that slow because this would be the Slow Brain Podcast, right? Now notice when I spoke that slow, what did your brain naturally start to do? It got distracted. It could start thinking of other things. It could start falling asleep. It could start wandering, right? Tell me those aren't the exact same symptoms you have when you read. How many people, when you're reading, you lose focus, you get distracted, your mind starts wandering, you start falling asleep? How many people actually use reading as a sedative, right? There's this token book that's been on the side of your bed for an embarrassingly long period of time. But remember in previous episodes, we talked about the power of memory. Right. Very, very powerful episode on how to improve memory now. Absolutely listen to that. But one of the bases was information combined with emotion becomes a long-term memory. But if your emotion is zero, because you're using reading to help you sleep, you're bored, zero times anything is what? It's zero. And that's why a lot of people don't remember what they read. Here's the thing. Your brain is a supercomputer. And if you don't give your brain the stimulus it needs, it'll seek entertainment elsewhere. In the form of distraction. And that's why your mind wanders often and you lose your focus 'cause you're actually reading too slow. It's like driving a car. If you're driving a car 20 miles an hour in your neighborhood, are you really focused on driving? No, of course not. What are you doing? You're listening to the radio, you're listening to our podcast, you're thinking about the bills, you're thinking about the kids, you're drinking your coffee. You could be doing 5 different things. But here's the thing, if you're going straightaways and you're going 200 miles an hour down a track, do you have more or less focus? Less. A little bit or a lot? A lot more focus, right? You're focused completely on what's in front of you. Are you trying to think about the bills? Are you trying to think about texting someone? No, of course not. You're 100% committed in what's in front of you. That's effective reading. That's quick reading, what we call. And so actually, I want to dispel this myth because I'm going to teach you how to read faster now. But if you believe that if you read faster, your comprehension is going to go down, then you won't do it. Now, there are many other obstacles to effective reading, and I'll go through how to fix them in future episodes. So here's your quick brain tip on how you could read 25%, 50%, even 100% faster, and it's called using a visual pacer. Using a visual pacer. What does that mean? When you're reading, I want you to use your finger, a highlighter, a pen, a pencil, a mouse on a computer to underline the words as you read. Now, this is different than traditional speed reading that takes your finger and puts it down the page or makes it look like an S or a Z because you miss big gaps and you're skipping a lot of words. I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying just lightly underline the words right above the screen or right above the page and don't touch the paper itself or the page itself or the screen itself. Just lightly go over it and use it to be able to track your focus. Now why does it work? I'll give you a number of reasons. First of all, children do it organically. Children organically use their finger until they're taught not to use it. Number 2, you do it. You're like, Jim, I don't use my finger when I read. When I ask you to count the number of lines that you just read in 60 seconds, 100% of people will use their finger or visual pacer to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The third reason you use it is because your eyes are attracted to motion. Your eyes are attracted to motion. What does that mean? If something ran across the room or outside, you would pay attention to what moves because it's your survival. Because it's like you're a hunter-gatherer, you're in a bush, and you're hunting this— your lunch, right? It could be a rabbit, it could be a carrot depending on what your diet is. But if the bush next to you moves, you have to look at what moves in your environment because number one, it could be lunch. Or number two, you could be lunch, right? And so that's the challenge is that how do you maintain your focus when you read? Having a visual pacer helps you to focus underlining the words, so your attention is being pulled through the information as opposed to your attention being pulled apart. Another reason you want to use a visual pacer is this: it's how your nervous system is set up, your neurology. What do I mean by that? Have you ever noticed like when you taste something, like let's say, have you ever tasted a great tasting peach before, like right off the vine or right from the farmer's market? Not something that's been sprayed and waxed and sitting in a grocery store for 6 months. Have you ever tasted a great-tasting peach? Now, in actuality, you're not tasting the peach. You're actually smelling the peach, but your sense of smell and your sense of taste are so closely linked that your mind doesn't know the difference. It knows the difference when you're sick and you can't breathe out of your nose, right? Because food tastes what? It tastes bland. Same as your sense of smell and your sense of taste are so closely linked, so is your sense of sight sight and your sense of touch. So when you're literally using your finger as you read to underline, people will tell me that they feel more in touch with their reading. By the way, if somebody loses their sense of sight, how do they read? They use Braille, right? They use their sense of touch. So I would encourage you to use your finger while you read. So here's the assignment now. Pick up where you left off in your book, time yourself for 60 seconds, and just underline the words, and then time yourself at the end of 60 seconds and see what that new number is. For many of you, that number will be the same or better, 25%, 50%. Some of you will double that speed. Now, if you want to get really good results, just practice using your finger, underlining the words, and do that for a few minutes first. And then after you're done, count, do the 60-second exercise, count the number lines. And what I would love for you to do is in our community, kwikbrain.com, I would love for you to be able to go there and share your ahas from this episode. Say, where did you start with? In terms of your lines per minute or your words per minute, and then where did you end with just practicing using your finger while you read? This is such a powerful example of what you're capable of. So are you ready to be a Kwik Reader, Kwik Brains? Use your Visual Pacer. It will activate more of your reading speed and your reading focus, and from that focus you'll get better comprehension so you can enjoy more of your Kwik Brain. Want to double your brain speed and memory power? If you'd like to learn rapidly and get ahead faster, I'd like to give you my brand new Quick Brain Accelerator program. You will discover exactly what I teach my clients to learn, read, and remember anything in half the time. There is no charge. It's my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. That's kwikbrain.com, or simply text the word podcast to 916-822- 916-82-BRAIN. Growing up struggling with learning challenges from a childhood brain injury, it's been my life's mission to help you have your very best brain so you can win more every single day. Now, want more Kwik Brain? Here are 4 ways to fast-track your results and lock in what you just learned into your long-term memory. Remember FAST. F-A-S-T. A, S, T. The F stands for Facebook. You're not alone on this journey. I invite you to join our free private online group. There you can connect with me, your fellow brain lovers, links to resources, and even submit your questions for me to answer in future episodes. Go to kwikbrain.com. That's kwikbrain.com. The A stands for apply. Act on what you learned today. Remember, knowledge is not power. It's potential power. It only becomes power when you use it. So use what you just learned. The S stands for subscribe. Don't miss the next episode and other free brain training. And finally, the T stands for teach. You want to learn faster now? The key is to lock it in right away by teaching it to someone else. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Here's a simple way to do that. Leave a review on iTunes. Leave a review with your biggest takeaway from this episode. You could also post and share this podcast on your social media. It helps us spread our mission of building better, brighter brains. And of course, tag us so our team can properly thank you. #KwikBrain, K-W-I-K Brain. Mine is @JimKwik, K-W-I-K, on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. So what does FAST stand for? Facebook, apply, subscribe, teach. I'll see you in our next episode of Quick Brain. Until then, remember, you are faster and smarter than you think.