Kwik Brain: Read 1 Book a Week (52 Books a year)...Without Speed-Reading | Jim Kwik

Welcome to Kwik Brain, bite-sized brain hacks for busy people who wanna 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. Let me ask you a question, Kwik Brain. What if you could read one book A week. One book a week, that's 52 books a year without speed reading. Would that give you an advantage? A little bit or a lot? One of the reasons why I love the topic of reading— we've all heard the phrase leaders are readers— is because, as many of you know, I grew up with learning challenges from a brain injury, and it actually took me an extra few years to learn how to read. And it was one of my biggest challenges. I remember when they would pass around the book in elementary school and you'd have to read out loud and I couldn't do it. And I think that's where a lot of fear of public speaking actually comes from. And maybe that's where I got my fear of public speaking. But I know that leaders are readers and you know it too, that if you're listening to this, you know the power of reading. And that if somebody could read 52 books a year, they have a huge advantage over somebody who only reads 2 books a year. In fact, I've read before that the average person only reads a few books a year while the other average CEO actually reads 4 or 5 a month. So, the reason why reading is so powerful is we live in this information age where the right knowledge is not only power, it's profit. And I don't just mean financial profit, that's obvious. There's a divide between those who know and those who don't know. But the beautiful thing about it is we live in an age of not muscle power, it's mind power. And the quicker you could learn, the quicker that you could earn. And so we live in this knowledge economy, but how do you learn most of this knowledge? It's still through— done through reading. And so the challenge is, is if you have a book and it's been sitting in your home or on the shelf for so long that most people don't get past the first chapter, then it becomes shelf help instead of self-help, right? And the reason why I love reading is that if somebody has decades of experience in marketing or sales or leadership or health or relationships or whatever it happens to be, productivity, and they put it into a book, That means you could download decades into days. You could download it into the superhero supercomputer, your Kwik brain, if you will, through the software of just reading, right? And so how many books are you reading right now? And if you'd like to improve it, that's what this episode is all about. I know that Warren Buffett was once asked the key to his success, and he says he reads 500 pages every single day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest. But I guarantee not many people will do it. And that's what he says. And he devotes approximately, I read, 80% of his day just reading. And most people are the same way. You know, if you have 4 hours of reading a day, processing information, going through emails and website and prospectus and business plans and emails, just all this information, even if you could improve your reading abilities, like through our, for example, our speed reading, quick reading programs and double your effectiveness, you could save 2 hours a day. And over the course of a year, that's 730 hours. Or even if you save 1 hour a day, that's 365 hours. And that is how many 40-hour work weeks? That's 9 40-hour work weeks. Imagine getting 2 months of productivity just saving 1 hour a day. And that's the power of reading. Now, let's say you didn't even know how to read faster and how to comprehend as much going through that kind of skill-based training. How can you actually go through and read 1 book a week? That's what we're gonna go through. So you could take notes if you can. We'll go over in a future episode the optimal way of whole brain note-taking so that you could actually have better focus and not just take notes, but also create notes. So you can look forward to that episode and continue also to post your questions in kwikbrain.com so I could answer them in future episodes. Okay, so let's get to this. We know that leaders are readers, right? We mentioned Warren Buffett, Bill Gates. I remember after doing a talk in Silicon Valley afterwards, Bill Gates comes up to me, we talk, start talking about the future of education, and he was talking, taking a technology standpoint. I was taking it from accelerated learning standpoint. And I remember asking him if he could have any one superpower, what would it be? And he says, Jim, the ability to read faster. And I'm like, you know, I totally agree that that's a superhero ability, it's a superpower. But whether it's Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey, people in the personal development space, Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Brendon reads one book a week for the past 18 years. Presidents of nations, JFK, Carter, they actually brought speed reading instructors to train their staff. Leaders are readers. And so the person that reads these books has a huge advantage over people who don't. And, but if you're not reading these books, then you have no advantage over somebody who's illiterate, okay? So here are just a few steps that I would recommend to go through a book a week. Number one, I would keep a book list. Keep an active book list. And what do I mean by that? Everybody has a to-do list, and that's great. I also keep a not-to-do list, but I also have a to-learn list. I have a to-read list. And so every time that we recommend books, whether it's from us or you get it from another source, write it down or keep it in your smart device or keep it on Evernote, wherever you happen to have it. Keep an active book list of things that you're excited about reading. Number 2, I would say, is start by testing your reading speed. Test your reading speed. And one of the simplest ways of doing it is picking up a book, putting on your phone for a 60-second timer, and time yourself reading 60 seconds and have the alarm go off. And then after you're done, you know, reading as you normally would read, count the number of lines that you read in 60 seconds. And so you set the countdown timer to 60 seconds, you begin reading, and then count the number of lines that you read in 60 seconds, and that gives you the lines per minute. Now, if you wanted to test your reading speed, it's done in words per minute like they do typing speed, and you could count the number of words in the average line, and you could average it out a little bit. Most books, it's about 10 words per line. So if you wanted to know your reading speed in words per minute, you would just take how many lines you read in a minute multiply it by 10 using this example of 10 words per line. Now you'll find that that number comes to approximately 200 to 250 words per minute, and we'll do an episode in the future on how— a couple of tips on how to be able to read faster. But let's say you're reading at about 200 words per minute for this example. The third thing you would do after you keep a book list, number one, and two, you test your reading speed, is you want to find out the average, the median number of words per book according to Amazon is approximately 64,000 words. Median meaning the 50% have more than that, 50% have less, but about 64,000 words. That means that if you're reading 200 words per minute, it takes about 320 minutes to finish a book cover to cover. If you break that down, divide it by 7, that's approximately 45 minutes of reading a day. That you could finish a book, an average length, about 64,000 words, medium. That's not exactly average, right? But it's half in between, in about 45 minutes a day, cover to cover. All right. So that gives you kind of a framework. So it doesn't sound like as much probably as you thought, that you're not reading for hours a day, that you're dedicating 45 minutes a day. The fourth thing I would recommend to be able to read one book and finish one book a week is to schedule your reading. Is to schedule it. Most people have the intention of doing something really good for themselves, especially things in the area of self-care, exercising and eating right and doing things that are good for you. And I think it's important to do your exercise, physical exercise, and also your mental exercise. And I— there's nothing that's better than actually reading in terms of building your mental muscles. And when you're reading faster, it obviously is more intensive for individuals and it's better focus. So it's a great workout. But you, just like you're working out your body, and what I would do is schedule it because if you don't schedule it, it's not real. If you just talk about it, it's not gonna happen. You have to schedule it around a time where you know you could execute on it because just talking about it is not gonna make a difference. And I would treat that time as time that's yours that you, It's like time with your boss or it's time with an investor. It's a very important time that you would not cancel because it's time for yourself. I would, as an extra tip, schedule that time around your peak times. And what do I mean by that? Some people are morning people or afternoon or more evening individuals, night owls, early birds. I would schedule your time when you're reading around a time when you're awake and you're aware because if you're— it's the same thing with working out your body. If you're tired, you're not gonna be able to put as much in. And you're not gonna get as much out. So schedule around your peak time. Some of you are familiar with our program that we did, the Superhero Brain Program. And one of our speakers talked about specifically chronotypes, you know, the time of day where it's good for you to be able to sleep and be able to eat and exercise and also be able to study and read. Now finally, as you're going through this, now you just schedule it and it's done. 45 minutes a day, you'll get through one book a week, 52 books a year. If you wanna accelerate that, of course, invest into a speed reading program. Because if you could triple your reading speed, then instead of 45 minutes a day, if you're going 300% better— and I'm not just talking about speed, because yes, part of it is speed reading, but really it's smart reading. That's what we really focus on. Makes no sense to read something faster if you don't retain it and understand it. But if you're going to triple your reading speed, what would normally take 45 minutes a day, now you're doing it in 15 minutes a day. How amazing is that? Or if you're reading, let's say, 800 words per minute, and the average book has, let's say, 64,000 words, then you're sitting down and finishing a book in 80 minutes. Now, if knowledge is power, you know that learning is your superpower. Imagine being able to absorb that, go online or go into a bookstore and just buy 52 books in any subjects important to you. Because what I love about it is, again, compressing decades into days. You don't have to go through all the trial and error. You could get all the wisdom just by reading, and you could do that too with 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 Kwik 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 916-822-7246 and we'll send you a direct link. That's 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 quick brain? Here are four ways to fast-track your results and lock in what you just learned into your long-term memory. Remember fast, F 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 quickbrain.com. That's K. 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 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. Hashtag Quick Brain. K W I K Brain. Mine is @JimQuickBrain. Kwik 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.