How To Read Faster In 2019

All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Jordan Harry with us. He is a 21-year-old who teaches people how to read faster and remember more. And for the past few years, he started his company Study Fast that has taught 5,000+ people from over 140 countries. And he is a TEDx speaker, European triple jumper, international keynote speaker, and is now trying to get a black belt in karate in half the average time, along with learning Spanish. So we got a lot going on. Welcome to the show, man.

Thank you, brother. I like to keep myself out of trouble.

Yes, well, you're definitely there. You don't got no time for trouble, man. Um, so we like to start out going deep so we can get to know you, uh, quickly. So the first one I got for you is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

Excellent. First of all, thank you again, Tyler Wagner, for having me speak to your audience. I'm excited to bring some value. So in terms of a story in my life that kind of has led the way for where I am today was my mother. I'm a mama's boy, and she kind of installed something in me very early on. The fact that you'll never be ready. And, you know, for viewers and listeners right now, they're like, what? You're not ready? Your mother? She was like, great mom. Let me strip it back. Let me strip it back. In the sense of, I grew up being quite a perfectionist. I think anyone who does a sport, who's in business, who has— who's an artist of some sort, you naturally have some level of OCD, of perfectionism, because your work's out there in front of the public eye. And what my mum taught me was to kind of water my own grass and not look over the fence to see what's going on on someone else's grass. You know, that whole thing, grass is green on the other side. So from a young age, from sports, which wasn't triple jump, but it's now transcended into triple jump, to my studies and mainly business. And I think the most relatable one would be when building website. Everyone spends money, plenty of time launching a website, when actual fact, if it's ready, quote unquote, it's too late because you're always going to be making improvements.

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. And there's actually, I think it goes in line with what you're saying. There's a, um, it's, I think it's a Richard Branson quote, and he's like, if somebody asks you to do something and you're not, and you don't know how to do it, or you're not ready, just say yes and then figure it out along the way. Dude, that's the way to do it, I, I think, you know, like, because like you said, and especially with the way the world's going, how fast things are going, um, by the time you are an expert at something, it's already going to be the next thing. So You just gotta go and keep going. Um, so the next one I got for you is, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

So for me, in terms of like, say, entrepreneurship, I teach speed reading, memory training. Um, so this all kind of ties in. For me, it's the small wins. A lot of people set these huge goals, whether it's language learning— like I said, I'm going through the process right now. Of Aprendo Español, learning Spanish. And at the beginning, I set myself the goal of, you know, I want to be fluent in Spanish in 3 months. Now, the problem with that goal— yeah, TIC is specific, it's measurable, and there's a time to it. The problem is that goal is massive. To become fluent even in English, which I can just about speak, that is a tremendous goal, you know. 21 years of age, and I think they say the average vocabulary for most English speakers is under 100 words that we use on a daily basis. So our vocabulary is actually really restricted in England. That varies.

Okay.

So to pull it back, instead, I want to become conversational within 3 months. I'm going to say conversational, a 15-minute general conversation with a native speaker, and I leave the conversation and they don't know that Spanish is my second language. So for me, day to day with entrepreneurship, with sports, with my social life, it's small wins. There's a great book called The Myth of Motivation, and it's the idea that we get confident after doing something, that we get motivated after doing something. And so what happens is you need to find in your life areas where you can get small wins. Because it's impossible to be happy all the time. And technically, it's impossible to get these big wins all the time. So you need to find small wins that you can celebrate on a day-to-day basis. And for me, every time I sell an online course, I do a funny little dance. No one sees it apart from whoever's around me. Small wins could be someone like yourself reaching out to me, either wishing me well or an opportunity. And I'll relish that moment. And before you know it, your small wins add up. It's compound interest. So day to day, just look for 1% better. Before you know it, you'll be a speed reader, you'll be a memory champion, and you'll be learning a martial arts.

Yeah, no, I agree. And it's like, it's something too that I tell people is if you just start out just like completing tasks that are small in the morning, it leads to completing bigger ones. So for me, what I actually do is like first thing when I open my computer is I go to my Facebook birthdays and I just wish them all a happy birthday. And just by like doing that every day, it just gets me in the flow of like, okay, completed that task, now I can get to the next one. Whereas without that little win that's so simple that I could have my assistant do for me, I like can't get— like, it's just harder to get started. So, um, so before we get to the next one, I want to dive deeper with you on this how to, uh, speed read. So give us— give it all to us, man. I want to know, how do you—

how do you do that?

Yeah, dude, we got time for this. I, um, so I do Audible on like 1.25, 1.5, but I don't really read books anymore just because of time constraints. So Audible, I can do it quicker. But, um, I'm open to it, and I think a lot of people listening are. So just give us some of the best stuff you got, man. How can we read faster?

Cool. So I'll try and break it down into 3 simple steps to begin with anyway. So the first one is I don't tell people to do something they don't enjoy. So number one, and this kind of comes into your lifestyle, if your lifestyle doesn't permit for you to read whilst commuting because people are driving, I would recommend straight away is getting your brain used to learning anything faster. So the thing everyone can do straight away is what you're doing already, Tyler, is putting audio videos on 1.5, 2 times. 1.25. Of course, if you're watching a movie, you want to enjoy it, take your time. And this is the great thing with speed reading. It's a superpower, one which you can turn on and you can turn off. So number 1 is looking at your lifestyle. You know, look at your day-to-day and where exactly can you get some time? Because quote unquote, no one is too busy. You know, we find time to brush our teeth for 4 minutes a day. So I'm sure we can find time to read a book for 2 minutes. Okay, so the first one is look at your schedule, look at your lifestyle. If you don't enjoy reading, find other ways— audio, videos— and accelerate the speed of which you're consuming them. Number 2 is tiny habits. Now there's no big science behind tiny habits. It's super practical. Whenever starting something new, like a reading habit, there's a resistance to starting. And we all experience this with procrastination. You know, we all know we should sit down and we need to write that application, that document, that email. But our brain doesn't like pain. So our brain prefers, as a kind of safety mechanism, to do something of pleasure, like wish someone happy birthday or, you know, watch Netflix, as an example. Instead, what we need to do— and I believe there's different studies that say this— is the first 20 seconds of starting an activity, there's this massive resistance. But as soon as you sit down and get going, yeah, it's easier than what you thought in most cases. So the idea with this tiny habit is, let's take for example wanting to become a speed reader. Now, the first great way is to start reading more. So I encourage people to read for only 2 minutes a day. Now, for a lot of people listening right now, they're like, what, 2 minutes? That's not going to have any effect. Number one, if you know anything about habit formation, you need to do it often. And if you protect your habits, they'll one day protect you. So whether you believe in the whole 21 days, 60 days, 120 days to create a habit, 2 minutes a day is such a small goal such a small task that you're like, it's easy, okay, I'll sit down, do my 2 minutes. And what you'll find is you'll often go over the 2 minutes because you've gone past that resistance to start the activity. You're now actually getting quite involved in what you're reading. So there's 2 things that go on there. It's such a small goal, 2 minutes, that you'll do it hopefully often. And number 2 is you'll probably go over the 2 minutes. Supplement the tiny habit. I encourage you once again to remove the resistance to starting it. Carry a book with you wherever you go. Make it easy on yourself to remove all the excuses. So carry the book in your bag. Okay, it's going to get beaten up. You know, download Kindle so you've always got it on your phone. You know, we are no more out of arm's reach from our phone. So you have no excuse now if you have it on your phone. Yes, it is pink. Pink's a real man's color.

I love it.

So if you're listening, I have a pink phone. And I also have Pink Spikes. It's one of my brands.

Hey man, I'm in.

And then also what you want to do is have it on your bedside table. You know, wherever you can visually see it and make it easy for yourself to start that habit. And number 3, and this is probably the most efficient way for me to tell you guys, is go check out my TED Talk. You know, I talk about how to break the reading habits that we have. I'm not going to turn this podcast, you know, into like a 20-minute talk right now, but the cheapest, quickest way for you guys to learn how to read faster, you need to know what's holding you back. And for many people, at least in the UK, if you couldn't tell by my British accent, is we haven't had a class called reading since we were 10 or 12. Yet every other subject gets harder, and we expect to keep up with, quote unquote, the reading age of a 12-year-old. So what you need to do is understand what habits are holding you back and how to break them. So to find that out, if you type in Jordan Harri into YouTube, you will see my TED Talk. Otherwise, type in how to read a book a day, and not only will you find my video, but you'll find some other really cool speed readers out there. Don't just learn from me. I encourage you to learn from different sources.

Awesome. I like it, man, because I know it's a big thing. Like, a lot of people want to know how they can learn faster because the world just keeps getting busier and busier. So highly recommend, check out the TED Talk and other resources. So, you know, my next one is, is what's your best piece of overall business advice? So you can tell us that, but then I want you to tell us a little about your story here. So like I want to learn more about like StudyFast. Like how, tell us like your ups, downs, like how'd you get to where you are? You're only 21 years old. It's kind of nuts. So tell us how you did it, man.

You know, to begin with, you know, talking about comparing to one another, you know, there's younger people doing bigger things than me and there's people older than me doing bigger things. So please, please, please, please don't compare yourself to me. If you are 21 or older, you probably have a better beard than me. If you listen to this, I have an awesome goatee. If the lighting was good enough. How did I create StudyFast? Well, it started from solving my own problem.

Okay.

Give an example. All good businesses, the majority of them solve a problem. And whilst I was at uni, I used to have a speech impediment, so I never used to sound as posh. My mum took me to speech therapy. I got better at speaking. However, my reading speed suffered because I couldn't pronounce the words. I didn't understand them. And for anyone learning a new language, you realize if you can't pronounce a word how slow your reading speed is. So when I got to uni, I realized, wow, I'm quite behind my peers. One night I Googled how to read faster, went to the top floor in the library, which no one goes to, found this old speed reading book. I actually ended up losing it, and that cost me £200. That was a lot of fun.

A pound, it's like $300, isn't it?

Well, if we leave Brexit, it will be worth nothing, the pound. So moving away from political issues, I lost the speed reading book, but I had absorbed the information. But it seemed like this superpower which only the rare few of us could have. So, you know, I put speed reading to bed, and I put all these business books— because I wasn't studying a business degree, but the whole idea of being an entrepreneur was sexy, you know, work your own times, which is a lie. Passive income, which is a lie. It all seems very attractive. And so I had all these books on my bookshelf, and my friends were always asking me, "Oh, what's that one? What's that one?" I honestly had to lie because I hadn't read any of them. So I picked up this speed reading thing again, and I spent a lot of money and time reaching out to speed readers. Because anything that we learn, we learn from other people, and then we kind of translate it into our own understanding. You know, that's the process of learning. And so once I'd gone on this self-discovery of how to become a speed reader, I recall reading all these books, I wasn't taking it in. So then I delved into memory training whilst I was at uni, once again reaching out to memory trainers, simply asking them. So we're talking about business advice. If you don't ask, you don't get. And I played the whole, I'm a poor student, you know, and the worst case scenario is they don't get back to you or they say no. Best case scenario, whilst you're sitting in bed on your phone sending these emails, is they invite you out to America for free to learn from them. And, you know, I thank my mentors every day. I'm in contact with them on a monthly basis. And they taught me how to create a business because for them, I was no competition. Rightly or wrongly. Naive for them, potentially. They saw me as a young guy. So once again, that already works against me when approaching corporates and universities, so they thought. Number 2, I'm mixed race, you know, I'm a person of color, and there is no one to my knowledge and to their knowledge that looks like me. So once again, they didn't see that as competition. And number 3, I don't have the years experience they have. I don't have a PhD. I don't have an awesome beard, unfortunately. And so for them, they were like, look, you're no competition to us, in the nicest sense. They're probably kicking themselves now. My goal was once again to target education as opposed to corporations. And I've branched into corporations, but education is still my passion. And they were like, oh, there's no money in education. And I come back to saying this, is that we all find time and money for things that we can't afford, that we don't have time for. And in education, yes, it's a long process, but if you're bringing value, they will find budget. And all the things that they thought worked against me, and I want the listeners to kind of really take this in, actually separate me and have excelled my business. The fact that I'm young, the fact that I'm of color, the fact that I have great, great sense of humor. I know that's subjective. I love that. It all works for me, you know, and the fact that, once again, being transparent, I do athletics and I have a modeling career as well. You know, I don't look or sound like a geek. So I'm now attracting all these different people from all different fields walks of life that can relate to me in some way or shape or form. So when you're starting out, don't feel like you have to create something massively different, and don't feel like your differences will be your disadvantage.

Dude, yeah, I love it, man. Beautiful answer. Um, all right, so my next one for you, um, is if you could give your even younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

Okay, so if I could give my younger self advice— damn. So how young? How young are we thinking?

I'm thinking like we got like 12, you know, we want you to be having some thoughts, like not under 10 because, you know, I don't know, maybe if you want to say under 10, but I feel like that's just like, I don't know, I don't remember much under 10.

Yeah, we start forming memories at the age of 3, but I can't remember what I had for lunch 2 days ago.

So that's a lie. We just debunked the myth.

Very true. So for me, what I would tell my younger self is don't change, because you'll never know the alternative. Yes, I could have become a professional footballer, but I don't know if I could have. I only know what I'm doing right now, and we need to have enough confidence in that And so for me, I would say don't change, Jordan. You know, continue on your path. Because for me personally, and this kind of links on to what I know you're going to ask in a moment, is things can always be worse. So yeah, I'd say keep pushing on, Jordan, because where I am right now, I'm really happy. And I know, of course, it can be better and it can definitely be worse.

Absolutely, man. So yeah, you know what's coming next, so I'm gonna hit you with it. The next one is In your opinion, what is the key to happiness?

So I remember when I saw this question and, you know, thankfully as a memory trainer, I can kind of formulate all my ideas and answers quite quickly. So I'm not reading off a script. For me, it was a case of, like I said, it can always be worse. And I know this sounds quite abstract, but I want to share this, my thought process. So for example, this happens almost every day, I lose my cool. You know, I think in all our lives we miss a train, our watch breaks, whatever. And we think, why Lord, why me of all people? And I play, and it's quite extreme, I play the shit stick house. I hope I can swear on here because I just swear away, man. So I play the shit stick house and I say, okay, I've just missed my train, but somewhere In Kenya, there is a mom who has 4 children, who lives in a shitstick house, who now has to walk 5 miles to go get water from the nearest water fountain, to then take it back to her family, to then only do that process again the next day, with no clear idea of what their future is going to be like. And yet those people still find beauty in their lives. And for book recommendations, The Man's Search for Meaning. I don't know if you've read it. Amazing book about a Holocaust survivor. He spent time in a concentration camp and I believe he was a psychiatrist.

It's been a while. It's been like 5 years, I think, since I read it, I believe. But that might be true. I'm not sure.

So he was a professional and I know the Germans, if you had some sort of skill that they found valuable, they would give you quote-unquote perks and benefits. So for him, he was able to kind of have this kind of eagle vision of life in a concentration camp while still being a Jew and still being submissive to their dictatorship. And he talked about how the sun would still come up and the picturesque scenes of the views outside the camp and how for a split second the thought of his wife and all this and the other would kind of take him away from his kind of permanent pain for temporary pleasure. And what he realized was at least he can still remember his wife.

Mm-hmm.

Whilst there were many victims in that camp who couldn't remember the faces of their family because it'd been that long. And so reading that book, um, and it was only about a year ago, made me really realize my shit stick house analogy It's true and it's real. The problem is, yeah, we get caught up in our own lives and we're always looking at the next big thing. You know, we're creatures that always want more. It's relative. We get the Mercedes, we want the Lamborghini. We get the Lamborghini, we want the Ferrari, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm happy with my Mercedes.

Hey dude, I Uber everywhere actually. I got my car down here in Miami. It's just easier. Don't have to worry about parking. So Um, but yeah, no, I actually always think about whenever I'm like upset, I actually always go back to that book in my mind, and I'm like, if this guy during the Holocaust was able to see, like, or be like not necessarily happy, but able to like still find the beauty. Yeah, find the beauty. Yes, that's the way to say it. Then like for me to be down here in Miami, like, you know, living well, you know what I mean? Like, what are these little problems? These are things I'm making up because I'm like bored or something. Like, I'm fine, you know? Like, so I think that comparison is important in, in that sense. Comparison can help. And I agree, like we were talking about before, like there's the opposite side, right? Like, you don't want to be comparing yourself to like people's Instagram profiles. I think that can be bad for your mental health. But if you're going through something that you deem bad, think about the shitstick house, like you're saying. Like, is it, is it really that bad, or can you just take 5 minutes and breathe, you know what I mean?

Like And you know, we don't even have to go that extreme. We can just go to our friend who works at a supermarket 9 to 5, hates his job, you know, financial turmoil. And I know it sounds bad, but to segue, a guy called Tai Lopez, I'm sure most people know him. He has this kind of 33, 33, 33 principle, which I don't know if you're aware of Tyler.

I know Tai, but I don't know, I'm not familiar with that though.

Awesome. Don't quote me on this, but I don't think he originated it, at least he passed it on. So the idea is we want to spend 33% of our time with people below us, 33% of our time with people on our level, and 33% of our time with people above us. Now, of course, I've simplified that, but break your life down. Okay, let's take a sport. So you want to train with some people for some percentage of the time who are worse than you. Why? Because we all have an ego and that all needs feeding. You need to train with people on your level so it boosts your confidence and you can all have things that you can relate with. But then you also need to spend equal amount of time with people better than you because you need to learn from their mistakes and you need to figure out what makes them so successful. If you spend too much time with successful people, you will get demotivated, and that's when you will feel like your life is shit. If you spend too much time with those below you, well, you'll think you're a god. Amongst mere men. If you spend too much time with people on your level, well, you're always going to be on that okay plateau.

I like this, dude. That's good stuff.

That's how I translated what he passed.

Yeah, yeah. You need, you need a balance, I think. A perfect balance. Yeah, I agree. Dude, thanks for sharing that. That's really valuable. So yeah, I mean, talk about Thai and talking about books. So what is the best book that you've read and what's the number one thing you learned from that?

So for me, it's going to be one that hopefully many people have heard. But if you haven't, you need to get off this podcast and go check it out. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The book is, I think it's nearly like 50 years old. It's coming up to 50 years old. It's been revised and examples in there are even older. And the one thing I took away, I mean, there's so much value and I don't want to give it now because I want people to go out and get the book. I have no affiliation. Yeah. But it was probably the first book I read when I was trying to figure out how to start business. And I generally believe, well, you know, you have to be a people person. People buy from people. And the one thing the book taught me was how important someone's name is. It is the best compliment if you get it right. And it can be the best insult if you get it wrong.

Yeah.

And unknowingly, in my subconscious, that kind of led me towards memory training. Because I think we can all relate, we've met someone within 2 seconds and then we've forgotten their name. Yeah. And it's a common problem. And as a memory trainer, you know, I'm not innocent of this. I'm guilty at times. And so the only way we can do it, we don't forget things that are important, or if they're attractive. You know, we don't forget an attractive person's name. Yeah, we don't forget someone who's important to us. So once you understand how the brain works, you can then hack it. So that book taught me the concept and importance of remembering someone's name, the handshake, eye contact. And then I went a step further and was like, okay, how do we hack this? So that's my recommended book and my recommended takeaway.

Love it, man. See, that's— I tell people that all the time. Nobody forgets my name, and I think it's because, you know, what I got going on right here, you know?

For those that can't see what he just did, gorgeous model pose of his hands.

I had to do it, dude. You set that up. I had to spike that one down. Um, I love it. So next one, what's your favorite quote and why? My favorite quote?

I feel like we could be on this podcast for too long, dude.

We might need to We could do a longer one in the future.

And with a glass of wine, I think it'd be interesting.

Dude, that would be great.

So be sure to tune into part 2. But for now, my favorite quote, and it's going to sound quite self-absorbed, but it's my own quote that I created.

Yeah, that's fine.

Recently started getting tattoos. Tattoos in places where I can cover them. Because once again, people do judge a book by its cover, ironically. So once again, we talk about me being different. I understand there's times when I need to cover it and, you know, speak with eloquence. And there's times when I need to dumb it down and, you know, show that I can relate. So the quote that I have on my chest is, "One day, the talents my mother has given me will truly give her the life she deserves." And for people to kind of relate in their own aspects, the talents that we will have— because we're all talented in some area of our lives— What's your why? So we've broken it down into two things, my quote. You know, I'm quite methodical. So we've got the first section, which is your talent. So identify what are your talents. And number two, what's your why? So my why, whilst my mother's alive and even when she leaves, it's going to be her. And I'm going to use my talents to give her the life she truly deserves. And that could be taking her on cruises, you know, whatever she wants, I want to be able to provide for. So that's my favorite quote. Figure out your talents and figure out your why.

I love it, man. Dude, that's good. So yeah, dude, thank you so much for coming on. Definitely, if you're willing, there will be a part 2. My last one for you on this one is where can our listeners best connect with you, find you online?

Excellent, excellent. Well, until you hear from us again soon, I'm excited to see which direction we take that.

Yeah.

You can find me on Instagram I'm really trying to go in on that and kind of document the journey. I think, like I said, entrepreneurship is romanticized. So if you follow me or even just check out what I'm doing @jordannn and @harryyy, shoot me a message and say that you heard of me from this podcast and I'll give you access to one of my courses for completely free.

Oh, that's a good deal.

Thank you. For me personally, I don't make my millions. I don't make millions full stop. but I make my millions from online course sales.

Yep.

What allows me to do is I make my millions through EU funding for the schools, which then allows me to give value like this, spend time with you now. Because look, we're only on this earth for a limited time and I definitely want to leave some positive impact. So yeah, Instagram, I'm documenting the journey of what it's like to run a business. It's not sexy all the time. @JordanHarrity, two N's, two Y's. So thank you, Tyler. Muchas gracias. Hola, tienes— meh. Thank you very much for having me.

Absolutely. And yeah, thank you again for— thank you again for coming on.