It has been said that standard education will get you jobs, and self-education will make you fortunes. This is no doubt true, and I believe that reading is a key skill necessary to self-education. Statistics say the average CEO in America reads 4-5 books per month while the average American reads 1 book per year! This same statistic goes on to say that 60% of those average American’s don’t even get past the first chapter in that one book! You may shrug your shoulders and say – okay big deal – so what? I am not a reader and why should that bother me?

Whether it should bother you or not is for you to decide. I simply share the facts with you. So here is another interesting fact: The average CEO of a fortune 500 company will earn an average of 536 times the salary of the average employee of the company he runs. This means that the employee of that company will work for a year and a half to equal the salary of the CEO for one day! What an extremely amazing and true statistic! Now, I am not going to suggest to you that the only difference between the CEO and the average employee is that the CEO reads a lot of books and the employee doesn’t, however, I will suggest to you that is one of the major differences.

Now, if it is true that knowledge and even reading has a correlation to income, and I believe that it does, then wouldn’t it be logical to conclude that it is in our benefit and interest to learn to read faster.

So the good news is that you can learn to read faster. However, the more important factor here is that you can read faster WITH comprehension. You see if you simply read faster but do not comprehend or recall what you have read, then what have you gained? Not only is speed reading with comprehension and retention possible for the human mind, you’ll be glad to learn it really is not a tough chore. The challenge is in learning the system. Because we know your brain is very systematic, then we can actually train it to read faster. Thomas Jefferson said that if we do everything that we are capable of we would truly astound ourselves.

The human mind is the greatest computer ever created. Nothing in the world will ever compare to it. It is a truly phenomenal machine that, when fed, will respond with results that will astound you. Benjamin Franklin told us that if we take the pennies from our pockets and put them in our heads, our heads will then fill up our pockets once again. This is so true. The person who invests time educating himself will reap a lifetime of extra knowledge, fun and income.

So let’s do what Franklin suggested and spend our pennies on books. As we read these books faster and faster and gain more and more knowledge, we’ll look back in amazement as our knowledge and quality of life increases. By increasing your reading speed, you are doing just one of the things you are capable of. My hope is that it will spark a fire in you to learn even more and in doing so develop and use more of your potential. Do this by continually learning and feeding the flames with information, knowledge and action.

One of my good friends has a little boy named Evan. I call him ‘Evan Till Eleven’ because it rhymes and I am a clown.

When I met them, he was zero. But, shortly thereafter he just had a birthday so now he is one year old.

A few weeks ago, we were at a swimming pool party. Evan had no fear of the water. He kept jumping off the steps of the pool to catch the water shooting out of the fountain. Every time he would jump off the steps I would catch him because little did he know that the water was over his head.

Evan did not stand on the steps and ask himself Can I:

- reach the water fountain?

- stand in the water or is it over my head?

- SWIM!!!??

Instead, this one year old jumped and laughed every time I caught him. I then swam him over to fulfill his goal of touching the fountain. He laughed hysterically as he touched the fountain and then I would take him back to the steps and guess what happened? You bet… Evan again jumped into the water that was above his head and I caught him and swam him to the fountain. This routine continued for longer than you might think is possible.

When Evan is at the bottom of a staircase, he doesn’t say to himself, ‘WOW! That looks too high for me; I bet others have gotten hurt, or what if I get stuck?’ Evan will look at the steps and start up taking one step at a time.

Memory in a Month – Ron White – Includes Bonus Book

Would you like to be able to:

• Recall names and faces?
• Give speeches without notes?
• Retain information from workshops or training classes?
• Be able to hear 65 words once and then be able to repeat them forwards, backwards or by number?
• Recall information from books you read?
• Improve your grades and study skills?

Learn More!

As adults it would be a good idea to think more like a one year old. We let fear stop us from really pursuing our dreams. We wonder what would happen if we failed, got stuck, ran out of money or looked like a fool. Often times, this worry is considering things that may not occur. Please do not misunderstand that analyzing a situation and assessing the risk is not wrong. It is right when it is tempered with some measure of risk and optimism.

In 13 years of running my own business I have asked myself what would happen if everything went wrong at the same time. However, I did not allow that answer to keep me from jumping off the steps. And you know what? 6 years ago, everything did go wrong and things went bust. But, it wasn’t all that bad. I was actually happy to find that the fall wasn’t bad as I thought and I swam back to the steps and jumped off again.

Today I am happily at the fountain I was reaching for. If you are on the steps and you are considering that risk of failure; if it is not a life or death risk… I encourage you to jump. I won’t be there to catch you, but you might be surprised to find that you are caught by your own imagination, drive, work ethic or the hidden hand of your Creator.

Put fear in its place and risk… Evan would.

Have you ever walked into a room and couldn’t remember what you went there for? Have you ever grasped the hand of a potential client and then when the handshake broke, the name seemed to disappear from your memory? Or have you ever left a prospect and as you drove away remembered a key point that you should have shared with them?

Of course you have… we all have. However, I have some great news for you. Your memory is nowhere near as bad as you may think it is. Recently, I was a guest at a radio station in Waco. The disc jockey wrote a 50-digit number on a sheet of paper and told his listening audience and then played a three-minute song for his audience.

As the listeners enjoyed the song I memorized the 50-digit number. When the song was over we went back live on the air and I handed him the paper. I then proceeded to say the number forwards and then I said it backwards. The disc jockey looked at me in utter disbelief and stunned he said, ‘Ron… you are incredible!’ I looked him straight in the eye and replied, ‘You know… you are right!’ I said, ‘Jay, the greatest computer ever created does not come from Dell or Gateway. The greatest computer ever created does not sit on the assembly line of a computer factory. Instead, you and I are the greatest computers ever created. And yes… you are right. I am incredible… but so are you.’

The human memory has the ability to hear a 100 digit number or more once and then repeat it forwards and backwards, it has the ability to memorize a Shakespearean play word for word or memorize the stats of every baseball player for the last 100 years, and the human memory has the capability to meet 100 people in 20 minutes and recall every single name!

Now, the question is, are you doing these things? If not, the reason is simply that you have not been trained to. Two thousand years ago a Greek named Simonedes developed a memory method called ‘Loci’. With this method, Simonedes numbered locations in his home. He started in the doorway and then logically proceeded around his home. He reviewed these items so many times mentally that if you asked him what was number 25 then he could instantly tell you what piece of furniture that number corresponded to.

These 25 objects were actually mental files for Simonedes. Then if he had a list of items he wanted to recall he would place them mentally on these objects in his home. Let’s say that you are a professional who wants to give a speech without notes. Simply turn the key points into pictures and then file them to your ‘house files’. When you are called upon to speak simply mentally walk through the house and give your talk without notes.

For example, recently I gave a one hour keynote in Atlanta at a home builders conference. I wrote my speech out the night before. The first thing I wanted to do was talk about the book, ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’ So I visualized the book on my front door and then mentally walked through my house and gave the one hour talk without notes! That can work for you as well. Anything that you want to recall simply turn it into a picture, place it on your house files and get ready to be amazed! YOU are the greatest computer ever created!

Reproduced with permission from Your Achievement Ezine. To subscribe to Your Achievement Ezine, go to www.yoursuccessstore.com All contents Copyright © YourSuccessStore.com except where indicated otherwise. All rights reserved worldwide. Duplication or reprints only with express permission or approved Credits. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem on success. One of his measures of success in that poem was to, ‘Leave the world a bit better.’ That line has always stuck in my head. Emerson said you have succeeded if you leave the world a bit better. I have made that line part of my life philosophy. When the tide goes out there is a watermark where the water was. When the waters of life recede from the shore of my being and my heart pumps for the last time, my desire is that there will be a mark where I stood. My aim is that the mark will say, ‘For some decades a man occupied this space who saw others more important than himself and efforted to leave the world a better place for them and those yet to come.’

Our society tells us that success is measured by bank accounts, power, beauty and wealth. These are often the result of hard work, luck or birth. They are not evil and I strive for some of them daily. However, they are not the mark I will measure the success of my life with.

So how do you do it? How do you ‘leave the world a bit better?’:

You give a percent of your income away to a charity or church. This makes your community better.

You save a percentage of your income to pass down to your family when you leave.

You volunteer your time for those who are less fortunate. Are you volunteering anywhere?

You mentor someone who needs a positive direction in life.

You follow and get involved in politics. Our laws and leaders will determine the future. You can have a hand in that future.

Or you can amass as much wealth as you can, spend it as fast as you can on the fading desires of your heart and seek to please you first. Our culture might tell you that this is success. Emerson tells us that it is not. I encourage you to realize that the waters of your life will eventually withdraw from the shore. When it does, will there be a watermark?