by Roger Seip
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
Introduction How to Break Records
Mental Factor Number One: Success Leaves Clues
Mental Factor Number Two: What You See Is What You Get
Mental Factor Number Three: What You See Is What You Look For
The Bad News: Your Comfort Zone Limits You
The Good News
The Really Good News: Small Changes Make a Huge Difference
How to Use This Book
Section 1: Your Learning Foundations
Learning Foundation #1: Your Instant Recall Memory
Chapter 1: Discovering Your Memory Power
How You Originally Learned to Learn
The Teachability Index
Your Baseline Memory Evaluation
Chapter 2: Learn to Speak the Language of Your Memory!
Chapter 3: Using Your New Mental Files with This Book and Beyond
Taking Optimal Care of Your Brain
Your Next Filing System
The Key to Long-Term Recall: Spaced Repetition
Remembering Names
Learning Foundation #2: Your Smart Reading Capacity
Chapter 4: Why You Read Like a Sixth-Grader and What to Do about It
Baseline Test
What Your Score Means
The Concept of “Gears” in Smart Reading
Three Reading Habits You Can Reduce
Chapter 5: Your Smart Reading Tools for Improved Focus and Speed
The Mechanics of the Reading Process
Using Your Hands Properly
Chapter 6: Your Smart Reading Tools for Enhanced Comprehension and Retention
The Balance
Why and How to “Smart Read”
The Key to Retention: Interactive Processing
Section 2: The Components of Your Record-Breaking Life
Component #1: Having Energizing Goals
Chapter 7: Five Characteristics of an Energizing Goal
Focus
Direction
Sense of Urgency
Chapter 8: Heighten Your Focus with Your Keystone Goal
Step 1—Narrow It Down
Step 2—Identify the Keystone
Step 3—Solidify the Why
Step 4—Make It Visual
Step 5—Create Supporting Rituals
Chapter 9: Overcoming Barriers
Three Emotional Barriers
Mental Barriers
Component #2: Being Fully Present: Using Time as It's Meant to Be Used
Chapter 10: Common Myths of Time Management and How to Use Time as It's Meant to Be Used
The Myth of Balance
The Myth that Time Can Be Managed
The Myth of “Enough” Time
Chapter 11: The Two-Hour Solution: How To Create a Record-Breaking Schedule
The Two-Hour Solution Defined
Chapter 12: Top Tips for Supercharging Your Productivity
Get Crystal Clear on Your Goals
Component #3: Be Brilliant with the Basics
Chapter 13: The Basics of You Part 1: Your Personal Core Values
A Structured Way of Answering the Big Question “What Is My Life Really About?”
Chapter 14: The Basics of You Part 2: Purpose and Vision
Be, Do, Have
A Structured Way of Answering the Other Big Question: What Do I Want to Do?
Your Vision Statement
Record-Breaking Component #4: Aggressive Mental Care
Chapter 15: The Most Basic Piece: Energy
Chapter 16: Your Energy Management Tools
Tool #1: Your Ability to Laugh…
Tool #2: Your Ability to Practice Gratitude
Tool #3: Your Ability to Manage Mental Input Sources
Tool #4: Your Ability to Decide Your Focus
Tool #5: Your Ability to Take Action
Chapter 17: The Power Hour: Your Daily Energy Management Practice
The Value of the “Last 5 Percent”
Where This Comes from—The Concept of “Little Victories”
What the Power Hour Does
The Power Hour Described
Conclusion: What to Do with What You've Learned
About the Author
About Planet Freedom
Index
Copyright © 2012 by Freedom Personal Development. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Seip, Roger, 1970-
Train your brain for success: read smarter, remember more, and break your own records / Roger Seip.
ISBN 978-1-118-27519-1 (hardback); ISBN 978-1-118-33055-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-33123-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-33338-9 (ebk)
1. Mnemonics. 2. Memory. 3. Speed reading. 4. Reading comprehension. I. Title.
BF385
153.1'4–dc23
2012010593
Foreword
People don't tap into their full potential.
Nearly everyone (certainly anyone who would pick up this book) wants their results to significantly improve. They want to grow, thrive, and make a huge impact, but the majority of their God-given potential isn't being used.
In the pursuit of personal development, most people make two dire mistakes. First, they look outside themselves for the answers. They believe that there's a magic bullet that someone has forged, and if they could only get their hands on that elusive magic bullet, everything would change for them.
Of course, nobody admits that t
hey are looking for a magic bullet. Deep down inside, however, most people really hope that someday their magic bullet will magically appear.
After people resign themselves to the fact that there is no magic bullet, they commit the second mistake. They make the process of growth way more complex than it really is. In an attempt to take personal responsibility and fully engage, all but a very wise few overcomplicate the simple steps that create huge personal growth.
This brilliant book has no magic bullets. It is simple without being simplistic. What you will find are foundational skills and fundamental truths that have been around for thousands of years, yet are still missing from most people's lives. These skills are fun to learn, interesting to study, and remarkably easy to apply.
I've traveled with, lived with, and worked with Roger Seip for more than two decades. I've watched him do the things that he teaches here, and he's living proof that when you understand and apply the fundamentals, you win.
Although there are no magic bullets, the results certainly seem magical. Tripling your ability to remember information! Reading two or three or even four times faster than you do now! Crafting goals that propel you toward them, and utilizing time in a way that allows the achievement of everything that's really important!
From the outside looking in, these are impossible feats, right?
Not at all. These are simply the foundations that any committed student of this book will experience. And that is only the beginning.
The principles and stories shared in this book work. They've worked for thousands of people just like you. Your task is to be bold enough to believe that you too can do extraordinary things, teachable enough to let this powerfully simple information sink in, and then accountable enough to act on it. Be free!
—Eric Plantenberg
President of Freedom Personal Development
Creator of The Abundant Living Retreat
Introduction How to Break Records
The very first motivational speaker I heard as an adult was a gentleman named Mort Utley. I experienced his speech in May 1989 in Nashville, Tennessee, at the end of a week of sales school with the Southwestern Company. I was 19 years old, and Mort Utley made one of the most unmotivational statements I had ever heard. He said:
“Most people do not get what they want out of life.”
How depressing, I thought. This guy gets paid large amounts of money to motivate people and he comes on stage and says that most people do not get what they want out of life. My 19-year-old brain went “Thanks for the tip, Mort. I suppose next you'll tell me that people from France all speak French. No kidding, most people don't get what they want out of life. Why do you think I am listening to you in the first place?
I didn't want to be most people, and my guess is that you don't either. If you want to be most people—broke, unhealthy, and with too little time to actually enjoy your life—you wouldn't be reading this book. However, you have to be aware that your brain/mind has a lot of unconscious patterns that hold you back. Here's one of them.
A big part of you wants just to be average.
Starting in elementary school, through a combination of education and our brain's natural urge toward safety, we all develop a strong unconscious desire to be like everyone else around us. We want to fit in. We want to be average.
In America in 2012, here is what “average” really means.
Physically—68 percent of Americans 20 and over are overweight; 34 percent are clinically obese. This average gets worse every year.
Relationships—Over half of American marriages end in divorce, a statistic that's held for more than a quarter century.
Professionally—Somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of Americans actively dislike their jobs.
Financially—The average income in America hovers around $40,000, less than in the 1940s when adjusted for inflation. The average American saves less than $2,000 per year. Do the math: It means they can retire around age 96. Look around, and you'll see that at least half of American households regularly struggle with “too much month at the end of money.”
And I could go on and on. Why do I start this way? Mainly because if you are serious in your quest to lead the kind of life that you really want, the first realization that needs to happen is that even now, in the most technologically advanced and prosperous society the world has ever seen, average sucks!
But as I said earlier, you don't want to be average. Congratulations! The fact that you are even reading this page indicates that average is not for you. You want to break records! In Train Your Brain for Success you are going to learn some fundamental principles, principles that have been proven over literally thousands of years to help individuals and organizations see consistent upward growth in every area—professionally, financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and in all types of relationships. The great thing about success it that it's simple. Not easy, but simple. Learn the fundamentals and apply them diligently, and you definitely will achieve the things you want.
So before we go further, I'd like you to do a short exercise. Consider whatever you believe to be your most important goal right now, and write it down.
Seriously, don't go any further until you've done this exercise. Whatever you consider to be your most important goal, please write it down.
Now look at what you wrote down, and envision that it has already happened. Imagine that you've made the money, that you've gotten the promotion, that you've lost the 20 pounds, or that you have the relationship that you have been looking for.
How does it feel? Good, right? I would suggest that what you currently have is a decent start. This book will show you how to take that thought seed that you have in front of you and transform it into something that doesn't just feel nice for a little while, but will actually cause you to accomplish that result—efficiently, joyfully, and with excitement.
We'll start with three mental factors for success. Understanding these concepts and applying them to any degree will automatically start you moving in the direction of your goals. The more you understand these, the faster and easier your goal achievement will become.
Mental Factor Number One: Success Leaves Clues
This means that the achievement of your goals is not a function of magic, luck, or circumstances. It's a function of how you think and what you do. Look at the goal you wrote down earlier. Is there anybody, anywhere who has accomplished what you are looking to accomplish or better? I'm hard pressed to find anyone who can answer no to that question. Whatever you want to do, somebody has done it and that's very good news for you. If anyone else has accomplished what you are looking to accomplish, you can be totally confident that they didn't do it because they are somehow better or luckier than you. They did it because they thought a certain way and they took certain actions. If you'll develop the same thought patterns and the same habits it is virtually assured that you will end up in the same spot. Success leaves clues. So no matter where you're starting from, you have the ability to get where you want to go. It also means that one of the fastest ways to get where you want to go is to simply find somebody who's gotten there and copy what he or she did.
An excellent example of this concept is an interview I heard of with a very successful professional bass fisherman. This fisherman was known for winning fishing tournaments no matter how tough the bite was—he just caught fish all time even when nobody else did. So a reporter asked him, “How do you do it? How are you so successful at catching bass?” The pro's answer instructs that success leaves clues.
Fisherman: “Well, most folks think that bass fishing is all about luck. They think that if you happen to be at the right place at the right time with the right bait you'll catch fish, and if not…well, you won't. What I've learned is that bass fishing is much more predictable and scientific. On a given body of water, the time of year and the weather will pretty much tell you where the fish will be. Their location determines which presentations might work, so I just find the fish and experiment wi
th a handful of lures and presentations until I find the one that works. Simple. Some days are tougher than others, but a systematic approach always works best.”
Interviewer: “That sounds too easy—like anyone could do it.”
Fisherman: “Yeah, that's probably true.”
Interviewer: “Well then, why doesn't everyone catch fish as consistently as you?”
Fisherman: “Listen to the first thing I said. Most folks think that bass fishing is all about luck. They simply don't realize that they have so much influence, so they never put in the time it takes to learn the patterns that work. They just don't know.”
This same is true about life. Yes—there are circumstances to deal with, and many are tough. But your success is not a function of those circumstances. It's a function of what you do with them. True, most people are not successful. Most people don't have the money, the relationships the health, or the life they really desire, because most of them think that they're just unlucky. Find successful people, people who are, who do, and who have what you want, and then do what they do. “Success leaves clues” means that success is something that can and should be modeled from others.
Mental Factor Number Two: What You See Is What You Get
Most of the time when someone says “what you see is what you get” they're saying that nothing is hidden, that you can take a situation or person at face value. This is different. Here I mean that the pictures you see in your mind tend to be the results you get in your life. If you watch top-level athletes right before they perform—what are they doing? That's right, they're visualizing the outcome they want. They're seeing the ball go in the hole, they're seeing the perfect gymnastics routine—whatever their sport, they're seeing a perfect result—in their mind's eye.
Athletes do this is because they know that it works. Athletes understand that the more clearly they can picture their desired result, the more likely they are to deliver a performance that produces that result. Again, the same is true in your life—the more clearly you can picture the results you want, the more likely you are to deliver the performance that produces those results.