Limitless - Jim Kwik Page 0,86

“road or highway.” Picture yourself going on vacation and being stuck in traffic for an extra day on the highway.

Try these Spanish terms on your own:

Desventaja (handicap)

Pelo (hair)

Bolso (handbag)

Dinero (money)

Leer (read)

I’ve used these examples to better introduce you to the basics. Build upon them and understand their significance. You can use these skills for practically anything. These systems are both flexible and universal. For example, if you want to remember whether a word is masculine or feminine, simply add the picture of a top hat for masculine words and a dress for feminine words. There are no rules, so be creative and outrageous, and have fun with them!

STACK IT

To learn new vocabulary or foreign-language words, combine the strategy above with methods that you’ve already learned from our chapter on study. For example, we talked about spaced repetition. That would be extremely valuable in this application. We talked about using music. Baroque music is very effective at helping to learn languages. The study techniques already in your toolkit will serve a bold new purpose here.

BEFORE WE MOVE ON

I hope you can see now that having a well-trained memory is an essential part of unlimiting yourself. When your memory is finely tuned, you’re exponentially stronger than if you’re trying to get by with an untrained memory. This book covers the foundation to jump-start your memory. Visit www.LimitlessBook.com/resources to get the three-part memory training videos as my gift to you. Before we move on to the next chapter, try a few things:

Think about ways to provide yourself with greater motivation to remember. Simply thinking it would be nice to have a better memory is probably not enough.

Consider ways in which you can try to be less influenced by distractions when you’re in a situation where remembering something might be important. I’m going to give you some tools to help with this later in this book, but what can you do right now to help you focus more?

Take each of the tools I’ve provided in this chapter out for a spin. There’s a good chance you’ll see a noticeable difference in your memory right away.

14

SPEED READING

Why is it so important to read?

How do I increase my reading focus and comprehension?

How can I get more out of every reading experience?

What do Oprah Winfrey, Thomas Edison, John F. Kennedy, and Bill Gates all have in common? They were all great readers. Leaders are readers.

Welcome to the age of data. Never in history has there been such an information surplus. More information has been produced in the past few decades than in the previous few thousand years. According to Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, “There were 5 Exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every 2 days.” And it’s only getting faster and faster. All of this information makes today’s age extremely competitive. Those people who can keep up with the latest information will have the competitive edge needed to succeed, not only academically and professionally, but in other key areas of life as well.

Studies show that there is a direct relationship between your ability to read and your success in life. Skilled readers enjoy better jobs, higher incomes, and greater opportunities for success in all realms of life. Think about this: If you have average reading skills, then you have the same understanding that most people have. That doesn’t give you much of a competitive advantage, does it?

Unfortunately, for most people reading is regarded as a boring task, something very time-consuming and tedious. Have you ever gone through a page in a book and found yourself asking, “What on earth did I just read?” If the answer is yes, you are not alone.

We’ve talked before about the challenges I faced early in my college career. As you know, those challenges were so great for me that I seriously considered quitting school altogether. But as I rose to the task of reading a book every week in addition to the reading I needed to do for my classes, I started to make considerable progress with my learning. I didn’t realize how much progress I’d made, though, until one surprising day.

Growing up, I’ve always tried to keep myself out of the spotlight. I was a shy kid, and I felt more comfortable blending into the scenery than being front and center. That continued when I went away to school. Big classes held in lecture halls were especially appealing to me, because I could sit in