Hit Your Goals Lately?

Goaltending: How to Include The (L) in “Earning”.

Can you imagine a cherry-pie divided into three sections?

Now picture this pie plate, and say hello to Slice # one, called Ms Visualization.

Now introduce yourself to Association, slice # two, and last is Location, slice # three.

Can you see the three-section pie now? You’re already a master of visualization.

The Association step is even easier. When you think cherries, your mind brings up

a bunch of links called associations. George Washington cutting down that tree; in each Spring they begin to flower in Washington, D.C.; and Dolly Madison, President James Madison’s wife, used to spend hours removing the pits to make delicious ice cream.

Notice how your mind automatically seeks associations like up and down, inside/outside, and good/bad, it is part of the context, the frame of reference of your thinking.

To remember like a wizard requires a Location, where the mental picture and the

association link together creating the Peg. A peg holds the picture and association

together, and a recall of one drags along the new idea.

Example

One is a Bun, two is a ton, and three is a tree, is a peg system that locks in the sequence, 1-2-3, and when we retrieve the peg, it retrieves along with it whatever we associated, in-sequential-order.

We want to remember in order, Symphony, Prayer and Watermelon.

First on our list is a symphony orchestra each eating his/her own frankfurter on a bun. Mentally see them chewing.

One is a symphony.

Two is a Ton; now mentally see a ton of people in St. Patrick’s praying.

Two is a prayer.

Three is a tree; now mentally see watermelons instead of leaves, hanging off

the tree’s branches.

Three is watermelon .

We can keeping adding links to our peg system, and when we recall the Location,

we will recall the concepts to be remembered in order.

The Educational Establishment

Educators luv to make all learning complicated, and get their jollies by making

us doubt the common-sense results of our three-pound coconut. Do they

consciously want their students to become dependent on them as mentors?

Sure there is complexity in the world, and everything is not obvious cause-and-effect, but research indicates successful, creative people are auto-didacts (self-taught), not the dependent learning-slaves of their teachers.

Psycho-Motor Skill

Speed reading is a psycho-motor skill consisting of three elements: eye-pattern-movements, field-of-vision, and specific guidance strategies. That’s the motor half; the psycho portion consists of meaning, comprehension and memory.

Funny thing, when we activate the motor half to learn new eye strategies,

we inhibit the cognitive, comprehension half - temporarily. Once we enlarge our comfort-zone to include chunking (grouping), and crunching the words of the sentences, our comprehension returns improved.

How to Code Your Goals

We asked a recent class to explain the difference between emotions and feelings.

The consensus was that emotions and feelings are synonyms. Webster’s agreed.

Let’s define emotion as the fuel, the energy that drives our thoughts. One psychologist explains that – mental-imagery drives emotions. What we see on the

movie-screen of our mind excites our emotions of anger, fear, sadness, happiness and joy.

Refer to your conscious thoughts as the guidance-system, and your emotions the electronics (fuel), that cause your consciousness to function.

Many believe that consciousness is our left-brain in action, while feelings are

a function of our reptilian complex and limbic system, structures of our right-brain.

Speed reading, memory and learning operate primarily at a subconscious level.

Do you know the next words out of your mouth when you are in a conversation?

How often are you surprised at how you express your own ideas?

Our right-brain (subconscious), operates at a non-verbal level 95% of the time. Your right brain controls pattern recognition, holistic thinking, spatial-skills, and parallel processing. We receive its communications through intuition, body language, gestures, and facial expressions.

Did you know that our subconscious mind responds to feelings, to the tenth-power,

compared to the power of words (verbal expression)?

Three Steps to Your Goal

First, a target-affirmation is a simple statement of your intention.

We use the law of As-If, by communicating your goals as a written statement, in a positive, present reality. Can you act-think-feel-believe that you have already succeeded in obtaining the goal of your intentions?

The simple act of expectation creates a mood-change, and acts as a motivation

to persistence and determination. Successful people make a commitment to

the pursuit of their goals that is almost obsessive and compulsive.

The daily act of writing out the theme (key ideas) of your intentions involves your three major senses – seeing, hearing and touching. The time consumed is just two-minutes. Is that too large an investment for success?

Second, mentally imagine a summary of your goal. See the outcome you want for

five seconds with feeling, and it becomes an ‘engram’, your memory trace and roadmap for your brain to follow.

See a vivid mental picture of being congratulated by your divisional v.p. , being

promoted, and applauded by your department staff. See it though your own eyes,

not as a picture, and it imprints itself as a goal. Some call this virtual reality, or

the use of mirror-neurons in using your feelings to trace your objectives. The result is an enlarged self-image leading to originality and creativity in pursuit of your

intentions.

Feelings

When thoughts and emotions unite, they create feelings. The secret is to raise the

vibrational level of your mood. Enthusiasm pumps your mood and suddenly all things seem possible through personal effort. It is measurable by a fMRI which

results in the excitation of your brain’s Ventral Tegmental Area, and the Caudate Nucleus.

These two areas of the brain are the pleasure and reward centers, motivating us to

produce the neurotransmitter, dopamine. Mentally see your success, and internally feel your response to your goal and you are triggering both left and right brain to act in-sync.

Endwords

These three steps – target affirmation, mental visualization, and feeling the power

of succeeding, causes the subconscious (right-brain), to follow your roadmap to

duplicate (by imprinting), your goals.

Try it, and discover an ancient secret that has scientific reality to improve your life

dramatically.

See ya,

copyright © 2006

H. Bernard Wechsler

www.speedlearning.org

hbw@speedlearning.org

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Tell Me Something New?

Why Some Folks Just Don’t Get It

Gertrude Stein Said…

“There aint no answer, there aint going to be any answer.

There never has been an answer, and that’s the answer.”

We’re much more positive –

“There is a perfect answer, there has always been a perfect answer.

You are going have the perfect answer. And it all comes-together

perfectly - five-minutes before you cash-in-your-chips.”

Stop waiting, and play the cards you were dealt – ‘and that’s the answer’.”

Barriers

1. The Critical-Logical leap: “School is so-o boring, tough, and about

stuff I’ll never use anyway – like math. I hate school”

2. The Emotional-Intuition leap: “I don’t get it, it’s over my head, I’m

not Einstein, and who-cares anyway. I hate my life!”

3. The Critical-Judgment leap: “Too hard – too-stupid – and I quit. I hate

my parents!”

It works just as negatively with – “I hate my boss! – “I hate my ‘significant-other!” or “I hate my damn job!”

Coda: Our learning ‘attitude’, state-of-mind and mood, is 51% of all learning.

The secret and rest of it - is…

a) being non-judgmental about the material and ourselves.

b) knowing WIIFM? (What’s In It For Me?) before starting.

c) having a relaxation-strategy to not use stressful-effort!

d) replacing our ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts), with

APTs (Automatic Positive Thoughts), about the material and

ourselves. “It’s important to me, and I am getting it one-bit-

at-a-time.”

You all know that “resistance” destroys a positive learning-mood; and

your rapport with the instructor and other speedlearners is ‘emotionally’

satisfying, and actually enlarges our comfort-zone.

The Law of As-If

Many of you have heard of the Law of As-If, but just ‘knowing’ something

doesn’t cut it.

Putting this law into practice changes our behavioral experiences, and

improves our daily lives.

The Law of As-If is the brainchild of Professor William James of Harvard,

back in the 1890’s, and still wins the gold.

It’s easy to understand, and simple to use. It says: Act as-if, think as-if, and feel

as-if you have already achieved your goal, and your attitude makes learning

comes as easy-as-pie.

Here’s why – the learning of knowledge and skills requires a combination of

our prefrontal cortex (higher left-brain thinking), and our amygdala (right-

brain emotional, pattern-recognition skills).

Logic, reason, and linear analysis alone, does not create long-term memory.

The extra ingredient to create mouth-watering smells and taste in the pie

we are baking - is feeling-and-emotions. One without the other is a half-baked

idea.

To produce left-and-right brain integration – in-sync – requires invoking

Professor James’ law of running your brain with mental-movies of your

burning-desire, together with ‘associations’ between new ideas and long-term

memories in your brain.

“It’s easy, I’m getting it, and I feel good about Speedlearning 100 and myself.”

Nothing happens with new knowledge and skills until you start to use it

every day in the real-world. This is not a rehearsal for life – it’s all there is.

Here’s Your Model

Step 1: Set the mood and get relaxed before you begin learning: sit-down,

feet flat, and close your eyes for a two-minute BI™ (Behavioral Intelligence

strategy.

Step 2: Inhale deeply from your belly-button, hold it for a count of five, and

slowly exhale. Focus on your breathing patterns and ignore your Monkey-

Mind’s stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Do it three-times in a loop.

Step 3: See on the movie-screen of your mind you winning your specific

heart’s desire – getting an ‘A’ on the exam, being offered the promotion,

opening the envelope and seeing the raise in your check, or getting a ‘yes!’

from that new account.

Step 4: Feel that surge of emotion – a flush of joy and happiness, and smile,

a wide Duchenne-smile exercising the muscles of your eyes and mouth - wide

because you own a successful strategy you can use again-and-again.

Step 5: Hear in your mind – “It’s easy, I’m getting it, and I feel good about

myself.” A specific one is – “Every day in every way - with help –

I’m a Speedlearner, and getting better-and-better.”

Repeat it five-times in a loop – and ‘know and expect it’.

Step 6: Before you open your eyes, and get back to your learning-routine –

keep that big-smile on your puss, and mentally hear-say-and believe –

“And it is so!” – enthusiastically.

That’s your learning strategy.

See ya,

copyright © 2006

H. Bernard Wechsler

www.speedlearning.org

hbw@speedlearning.org

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Wanna Win?

Work-In-Progress

Want to win the game?

Until you cash-in your chips, consider yourself a Work-In-Progress (W-I-P), as if

you were a Picasso unfinished painting which he returned to again and again.

Your W-I-P attitude leads to active personal growth and self-improvement while you keep adding and subtracting from your knowledge and belief core, (your painting), and stay willing to change your mind.

Those of us who believe we are a finished-product, stop learning and experiencing, leading to an extreme state of comfort-zone-itis. We inhibit our left and right brains,

instead of exciting and firing our synapses of discovery.

Our comfort-zone is where we make decisions about right-and-wrong, what’s

important, and what we are capable of doing. Have you recently attempted something for the first-time, using some new electronic gadget or using a special computer program, and heard your still-small-voice whisper in your ear, - You cannot learn that, it’s too complicated! –

Some of us feel a cold chill in the pit of our stomach warning us of impending doom when we face change and newness! Do you keep trying or get up and walk away?

Those who kick-butte are willing to fail more than snailers, and continue to attempt new approaches. They maintain a belief system, an attitude of mind, to keep trying

until they find a way, or make a way, to succeed. That’s called grit.

Comfort-Zone

There are scientific-facts like gravity and electromagnetism, simply reality, based

on personal experience, and beliefs, which come from our family, community and

education. Repetition and conditioning create our comfort-zone, and after age 25 we stop revisiting our beliefs and submit to their dictatorship.

How many beliefs do we hold that are plain wrong because times have changed, or our decision years ago about people, have not kept up with their personal growth?

Scientists seem to lack the ego of the rest of society, who must protect and defend

its unchanging beliefs. In any given year scientific journals will report new proofs

that contradict what was once proven-truth, and inform us of a new reality. They are stronger because they welcome change in their beliefs.

The rest of us, including the author, suffer from distortion-thinking, unrealistic expectations, and twisted self-perception, leading us to beliefs in fables, myths and outright lies.

The media, government bureaucrats, and Washington lobbyists, in addition to

Eisenhower’s industrial-military complex, drug companies and oil producers, have a vested interest in not disturbing our dormant comfort-zone.

Disruption

Learning only occurs when there is a disruption of our comfort-zone rituals.

That’s why we have to experience a disaster, even hit-bottom, before we can

change a core belief we hold about ourselves and our gifts and talents.

We don’t -think- our way to changing beliefs; there must an emotional explosion

that shakes up our brain and mind.

Your Career

Most of us get comfortable in our career, like putting our feet into old shoes.

We stop questioning if the job we do is right for us, permanent or where else we can best develop our genetic gifts and talents. The status quo becomes a core belief in our comfort-zone.

Did you know that the average executive changes careers five-times in a lifetime?

Not jobs or companies, but lifestyles and occupations. Will you be comfortable with

the coming upheavals in your life? What’s your competitive-advantage?

A recent report by the National Academies, a hot-shot advisory group with no axe to

grind, specializing in Science and Technology, warns that heavy-weight corporate

changes are three (3) years away.

Downsizing, outsourcing, bankruptcies, and mergers and acquisitions, lead to

catastrophic changes in your life, ready-or-not. Are you really insulated from change? What’s your unique competitive advantage over your peers?

You are familiar with the expansion in China and India, but you might be interested

in knowing that almost forty (40) percent of major U.S. corporation are moving some of their highest paying positions overseas. No, not yours, right?

Not Just Industrial

It began with cheaper labor costs, increased because of tax incentives by the foreign companies, and now is focused on science and technology. Domestic executives and professionals are rapidly being replaced with international staffers who are highly

trained and fully competent. Yes, they are paid one-third of U.S. financial packages.

Fortune 500 companies like Exxon and Dow have always operated internationally,

but by 2009, small companies will market coast-to-coast, and continent-to-continent.

Yes, it’s the Internet, and global trading practices, and it will affect your life, and disturb your sense of status-quo.

The Talent

Today, talent is global; universities in China and India are producing world-class

graduates, PhDs in science and technology, and training executives for international management. International companies are linked by scholarships they finance, with

emerging markets schools, and their new graduates.

Many of these students have proven fully capable of running departments and

divisions, and producing impressive profits. Yes, they are fluent in English, thanks

to their education and the Internet.

The author of the Outsourcing Report, Professor Marie Thursby, of Georgia Tech

College of Management, says the coming revolution is based on a working collaboration between companies and international universities that are already established and growing. She has examined fifteen industries and companies in the

U.S. and Europe, and sees explosive change as a fait accompli, though existing executives and professionals seem unconcerned and unaware.

Two Reasons

The massive economic growth in China and India leads international companies

to want a piece of their growing pie, and operating local is a necessity.

The second reason is the increase in the foreign talent pool, their adaptability,

and willingness to change, learn and travel, without argument

Today, based on the thousand of foreign students trained in the U.S., who return to

become professors in their own country of origin, there is no exclusivity on brain power. The future Nobel Prizes will go to graduates of foreign universities.

And

Hiring by major companies for positions in the U.S. are being reduced not just for

research and development, but including middle management. The highest paying jobs are easing out the harbor for foreign shores.

The U.S. is becoming less competitive and in time – a generation – may be marginalized.

Did you know that in 2006, Japan has experienced no population growth?

The death statistics are look eye-to-eye to new births. Investments in Japan may soon reflect a stagnant domestic economy.

Sure, you say, - but it cannot hurt me because my company is not science or technology oriented - . Set your sights on potential declining economic growth

in the U.S., and consider the question of your children’s future.

Are we producing world-class executives, marketing experts and innovators?

It is government statistics that U.S. students lag way behind the world in math and

science acuity, starting in high school, and students never catch up to world competition. Do want to see your country as a backwater market?

We train our kids to be masters of distraction, beginning with video games, TV,

and personal-messaging on the Internet.

We respectfully suggest our society consider the stranglehold the Educational

Establishment has on our resources. Some of our best universities vie for the title

of Best Party School, in order to attract paying students.

Our experience is with the Reading Establishment, that is delighted with the status-quo, and their members, who are not required to confront their own comfort-zone.

Would it make a difference if the average student would Triple their Reading Speed,

Double their Memory – Guaranteed!

See ya,

copyright © 2006

H. Bernard Wechsler

www.speedlearning.org

hbw@speedlearning.org

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What The Skinny on Evelyn?

The Inside Skinny About How Evelyn Wood…

Evelyn Wood was a school teacher in Utah, and not surprisingly

was a devout Mormon. One of the tenets of the Mormon religion

is they evolved from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

Brief History

The two secrets of survival of the various sects and religions in America

is that verbal conflict is ruled off-limits. It is not merely impolite, but

a breach of the social fabric to create an adversarial position that mine-is-better-

than-yours..

Secondly, we do not apply pragmatic logic, nor require scientific

evidence to justify religious belief. Faith rules in all religions, not strict reason.

The Mormon religion, a partner in Christianity, is unique because it has

a history of revelation, persecution, exodus and triumph, all within the United States.

Joseph Smith, 1830

Mormanism did not start in 1830, in Palmyra, New York, that was the year Joseph Smith

published them to the world, after seven years of study.

The genesis was 600 B.C. by a prophet named, Nephi, who received a revelation to leave

Jerusalem and travel over the oceans to America with his people. Mormon, a second prophet, was instructed by God to write a summary of the writings of the American prophets. His son, Maroni, carved this religious testament on Gold Tablets, and buried them in sacred ground in America. They remained unseen for a millennium.

In 1823 Joseph Smith, a farmer in New York state, received a vision from the prophet Maroni, with instructions to search for the Golden Plates and reveal them to the world. Smith unearthed the Plates and spent the next seven years in study, while training his own family in the principles revealed.

For a history of the Church of the Later Day Saints, and the admission of Utah to the Union, Google: the name – Mormons. Their trek to full acceptance as Americans and

Christians makes for a fascinating adventure. Many of their founding fathers were

murdered for their beliefs before reaching Utah. Today we take for granted that the

Book of Morman is read as a companion to the Bible. It did not come easily or without controversy.

Evelyn Wood

Her church required the congregation visit other churches and temples. On one such visit

to a Jewish temple, Evelyn attended a Talmudic Bible class. The Talmud is a study of the religious law in the early books of the Old Testament. The word is derived from the Hebrew word, to learn.

The ancient tradition is that someone is called upon from the congregation to discuss the meaning of a particular passage. He has the sacred words in front of him, similar to the

Torah, which contains the Five Books of the Holy Hebrew Scriptures. The Torah is also called the Pentateuch.

Many of those called to lead the discussions were neither experts nor masters of their subject. They lost their place on the page causing them acute shame and embarrassment, as they struggled to recover by regressing to the proper place in their reading.

So?

This situation was remedied by the Reader being given a tool to maintain his place on the page, and focus his eye movements. It is referred to as a Pointer, and is handheld and made of brass.

This is the true genesis of speed reading because using the pointer produces accelerated

reading of the scrolls. Evelyn immediately saw the link and association between the Pointer and improved reading in English. She remembered the brass pointer when she created her speed reading program.

Evelyn Wood used the hand as a pacer after her research indicated that it was based on a human instinct – our-eyes-follow-a-moving-object.

It’s Scientific

Vestibulo Ocular Reflex, also called Smooth Pursuit Tracking, or Sensory Motor Integration, is the connection between our brain and the eye-movements necessary for reading.

There are three canals involved in our hearing system that permit sharp, acute vision

when they are in-sync and balanced. How we focus on the words of a sentence is based on our field-of-vision and our eye-pattern movements.

Reading involves our photoreceptors, the Rods and the Cones of our retina, specifically in the Fovea Centralis, These image symbols are transported by the Optic Nerve to Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas in our brain for decoding and interpretation as meaning.

Her History

She graduated from the University of Utah and taught remedial reading at Salt Lake City

high schools. Years later she returned for her Master’s degree, and spent her time on the specific steps of the reading process. Speed reading came from her research. She taught and improved her program by teaching students at the University of Utah.

In 1959 she launched speed reading as a commercial enterprise.

These aforementioned facts were told me by EW when the undersigned partnered with her in the marketing of speed reading. Everything else about the origins of speed reading were created by public relations practitioners.

ACT Reports

Reading is the key to college success, was the conclusion of a 2006 eighty-six page report by ACT, a non-profit organization that tested 1.2 million high school students.

About half the graduates could read complex material well enough for the freshman year

of college; the other half were confounded by college level reading comprehension.

ACT concludes that reading skills, strategies and techniques, end at elementary school.

Adults live out their lives with 3^rd grade reading skills including reading one-word-at-a-time, regressing twenty-times per page, and subvocalizing the words they read. Subvocalization alone causes a loss of up to 40% in reading speed because we cannot read any faster than we can speak – up to 200 words per minute.

The typical untrained college graduate also suffers from porous-comprehension, causing

a testing loss of up to a full grade. Many find that within fifteen minutes of studying text,

they have less than 50% recall of the major details. If we cannot remember the gist of what we read, did we in fact read the chapter, article or report?

Endpage

We suggest that speedlearners begin their training in first-grade, with the proper handheld tools, strategies and techniques. They will easily triple their reading speed, double their memory – guaranteed – for a lifetime of learning. It is our goal, mission and cause to

convince the Educational Establishment to save the children.

Based on the college, up to 50% of students do not graduate with a four-year degree.

This is not merely a problem for industry with personnel who are only marginally productive compared to our international competitors. We suggest the difference between

the fast-track and the side-track is adding an L to earning.

See ya,

copyright © 2006

H. Bernard Wechsler

www.speedlearning.org hbw@speedlearning.org