Howard Berg: the conversation

Mornings in the Lab · Interview transcript

A famous guy named Howard spent five years writing his memoir. One man read the whole book in six minutes and gave a full synopsis on live television. Stern's response was, "It took me 5 years to write that book. You read it in 6 minutes, you fat bastard." We've got the fastest reader in the world here today. He grew up in the housing projects of East New York, and he hid in the library to stay safe from the gangs outside. Books were shelter first, then they became something else entirely. By age 11, he tested at a 12th grade reading level. His seventh grade teacher caught him finishing Call of the Wild in 90 seconds and didn't believe it. The Guinness Book of World Records did. 25,000 words per minute, 80 pages per minute. He read a 1,500page congressional bill live on Fox Business in 50 minutes, then explained the contents. Today he has a complete learning system covering reading, writing, memory, and creativity. >> Howard, what a life. Welcome to the big show. Let's have some fun today. >> Johnny apparent. >> Did I hear 2500 words a minute? >> And did I also hear that Howard Stern said, "You read my bit my you read my book in six minutes, you fat bastard." So Sophia Grant calling out our guest. Let's bring him up. Howard Steven Berg, good morning. >> Hi. It was 25,000 words a minute. >> Okay. So perfect. So let here's the question then, brother. How the [ __ ] do you turn the pages that fact? >> That's the first lesson. >> I was gonna say, I mean, literally, you must just be like [ __ ] doing this. >> Pretty much. It's a page and a half a second, >> dude. Are you [ __ ] kidding me? Does there so in the books I read there's lots of pictures. I'm assuming there are no pictures in your video in your books >> but depends on the subject books that have pictures but I could give you some strategies on how to do it today and so it's not just a mystery but something you could begin putting to practical use in your own life. >> I'm brother I'm very very you're so advanced on this. It's for someone not to listen to what you have to say would just be ridiculous. Yeah. >> I wanted to just say something on your other topic. I'm 76. So a hot night is you forgot to put the air conditioning on. >> How what did you how old are you? I missed it. >> He's 76. >> Are you really? Good for you, brother. >> Well, it's better than not. You know, I have a lot of friends who are and they're not doing so well. >> He says Yeah, that's that's true. Howard, where where are you joining us from this morning? >> I'm in central Florida. I'm between Okala and the Villages. >> Okay. Okay. We pride ourselves on finding interesting people. Keith and John love to find interesting people that, you know, if you took a group of 10, there'd be one person who's extremely interesting. and you struck me as an interesting person because of your story. You Let's get into Let's get into the 1500page bill on live TV. Let's get real quick before we get going right for the [ __ ] We gota You got to listen. >> Take me to a [ __ ] movie or dinner before you go to the room on this one, you know? It's like >> Yeah, that's fair. Okay. So, going back to the 25,000 words per minute. Excuse me. A page in a second and a half, right? >> A page and a half a second. >> Page and a half a second. Jesus Christ. Okay. So, God, that makes it even So, explain how you look at a whole page of text >> and in less than a second you've gathered that. I mean, do you literally go line by line or do you have some [ __ ] weird just extraction thing that the rest of us don't have? >> Actually, you do have it. I'll explain how. When you're in a car and you're driving, see, 70 miles an hour, you're reading the road front, back, left, and right, and you're bored. You turn on the radio, you're on your phone, you're talking to people in the car, and then you read a book. The average speed's about 200 words a minute. So why can you read in four directions at 70 miles an hour in a car and only read about 200 words a minute in a book and retain about 10%. The difference is in a car it's a movie. You're seeing all that information visually and making decisions. In a book it's like someone is in your head talking one word at time. Most people read as fast as they can talk. I'm seeing a movie. So, if you look at all the books behind me, you see them all. These are real. That's not a backs stop. You see all the books. But if I had to read the title on the spine of every single book, one at a time, we'd be here all day just reading the names on the titles of the book. So, vision is analog. It takes everything in instantly. And hearing is digital, one bite at a time. Most people are reading digitally and I teach them how to read anal analytically. So they're taking in larger chunks more visually. You end up seeing two I see a half a page to a page but a normal person could see two or three four lines simultaneously and take it in visually and they begin to see the information instead of listening to it and that's what makes it easier to go quicker. Wow. >> I'm I'm like the one or two words guy, not the one or two lines guy. >> You could be president. >> Where where do you What What's the What's the first tip? Where do you start with going from the average guy one or two lines to old [ __ ] page? >> I actually just gave you the first tip, but I'll give you the second one now. >> Well, okay. Well, if you gave me the first tip, forgive me. >> Be more visual, see it more analytically. What I'll show you now is a practical way for doing that instead of telling you what it is you need to do, how it could be done. So when the show is over, pick a book that you understand. Want to make sure the only thing that can confuse you is the speed, not because you're reading quantum physics and don't know anything about it. >> Gotcha. >> Then everything's confusing. So you read at your normal rate with a timer. When the timer goes off, put a little line in the margin. That's how far you go. Now, now the magic. Go back. Take your hand and go from the left to the right margin. And your eye is following your hand as fast as you could comprehend. So, as long as you know what you're reading, go quicker and quicker and quicker until you reach a point where it's too fast, you don't know what you're reading. That's where you hit your cut off point. Go down just a little in your speed so you're at the peak speed that you could still understand. And for five minutes, one line at a time, eyes following your hand. Now go back to the first page where you tested yourself for a minute. This time, time yourself for a minute using the hand to move your eye and you'll go 20 to 40% further just with that one step. And you could see it. It's something you can experience. >> It's just a practice thing. You just keep practicing and it just gets faster and faster. There's more to it. We'll go over that because comprehension is more important than speed. And most people, the reason speed reading doesn't work is reading doesn't work. You could read a calculus book slowly, memorize all the formula and get an F because you don't know how to use them. You have no idea how to solve a problem, which is not a reading problem. You read all the information. So what I do is I also teach comprehension and understanding which I could explain on the air and I think it's more important than speed. >> Yeah. >> So Howard, how do So how do I I guess so you mentioned comprehension. I'm I'm trying to trying to I'm trying to gather my question for you here. I guess what I'm trying to say is you see a page of words. How do Keith and John know that you've read the page and you understand the comprehension and you can explain it to us? Like how do you know like how do you know the results? I guess that's what I'm trying to say. It's like okay, >> very good. Good. That's a great question. I appreciate that. I'll give you two answers. One, I did a when I was in college, my last year of college, I was majoring in biology and I decided I wanted to be a psychobiologist, not a psychotic biologist. That's Frankenstein. Psychobiology is the biology of behavior. >> Okay. So, I had no psyches and the dean said, "You have to do a four-year psych program in one year. All of it." Ed finished the bio program at the same time and I had three jobs. I was working 18 hours a week. He said, "You're not smart enough." And that's when I learned to do this. And I did the four-year psych program in one year. And I took the graduate record exam in biology and I read 48 books in three nights like biochemistry, cell physiology, genetics. I got three questions wrong. I was in the 99th percentile in the world. So that's one way you could tell. Of course. >> So real quick, real quick. When you said, "Okay, [ __ ] this Dean. I'm gonna do this." Right. >> I didn't actually say that, but that was the context of >> that was the Yeah, that was the idea behind it, you know? That was the driver. So So I guess the question is, did you have somebody teach you how to do this or did you figure out how to do this on your own? He's taking all these great courses on how the brain works. I'm like, why don't they use any of this to learn? >> So, you actually very smart rats and monkeys and >> this is your methodology that you created this. >> Yeah. I looked at that makes it even put it together. It works. >> That makes it like a thousand times better. You've you actually engineered this method which >> the man who owned >> the man who owned Evelyn Woods hired me to train his son and said you've gone past speed readading the speed learning and he actually wanted to buy my rights. I didn't sell them to him but he owned Evelyn Woods. He was the CEO. So that gives you an idea. Another thing you asked me how could you tell? There's a test called the Nelson Denny. It's a standardized test for speed and for comprehension. And they took a hundred random people. 50 of them did the A and then the B. And 50 did the B and then the A to see if what happened after they took the program. Everyone in the 100 person group doubled to quadrupled. Most doubled and they had the same or better comprehension. So that's a standardized exam that's proving that the results are valid. Not just for me, me doing it, it's like a a a sideeshow. You doing it, that's a breakthrough that could help a lot of people succeed in an informationrich world. And we proved that that's what happens. >> Okay. So, here's the million-dollar question, brother. Right. You can read. You said 25,000 words a minute. Is that right? At >> peak. Yeah. >> Okay. Can you actually do this when you're speaking out loud? No, I I'm knew the answer to that. There's no possibility, but it's >> No, it sound like a fax machine. I was gonna say yes. I don't Your mouse can't follow your brain on that one. >> No, I actually met the world's fastest reader. I did the 4G launch in Australia for their phone company and they had me and the world's fastest speaker and the fastest rapper and the fastest texter. And he's very fast. He did like the silic from Hamlet in like six seconds which is quite remarkable but you couldn't understand anything if you slowed it down with a tape you could hear it but >> no [ __ ] >> you couldn't hear the words because he was going so fast but he was saying them >> Howard Steven Berg hanging out with Keith and John this morning Johnny I'm just I'm just taking this all in man I'm really trying to wrap my head around >> because this whole when it comes down this whole bill thing that's like the headline great people want to know what's behind it. Yeah. Well, and let's get further behind it, Johnny. So, get this. The library saved Howard Steven. And you said literally, you said the library in the Brooklyn projects was the safest place in your neighborhood. Howard, walk us back. What was that version of Howard Berg's life when you were running from what you from when you went to read? You were running. You're running. It sounds like maybe you had some challenges growing up, but the library was your was your place of comfort. Talk about that, Howard. I'll give you a little context. We moved when they raped an 88-y old man. That was the neighborhood. But I was mund >> the gangs to keep in the neighborhood. >> Jesus Murphy. >> Yeah. I was in high school. I was a home monitor. I asked for a pass, pulled a knife out with a blade like this, put it against my throat. I said, "This is my pass. What are you going to do about it?" I said, "I'm going to hold the door and you can go anywhere you want. I think this is a very good pass." And I'm fine with that. Was high school. It was a very violent neighborhood. There were a lot of kids killed. There were gangs that had 1500 kids in them. And I don't know if you could tell, but I'm not much of a gang kid. And when I got out of high school at 17, I had two choices. I could go to Brooklyn College and get a new car, or Bingington, which is a top college where it's minus 40 windchill, but no car. And I went to Bingington because I wanted out of Brooklyn. I wanted bad enough that I was willing to not have a car at 17 >> to get out of that environment. My dad was pistol whipped. My sister was attacked. It was just part when you're going to be [ __ ] scared for your [ __ ] life every day. >> Yeah. >> And they'll steal it anyway. So what's the point? >> Yeah. No [ __ ] How long am I going to have it? >> Yeah. So, I was more interested in changing my life, which I did. And I'm really pleased that I did. It was a good school. I got a good education. But now, my my focus is on other people. I had a school. If you ask me, how do I know it works? I owned a school. My 11 year olds were doing college classes in one week and passing them on KIPP exams. They wrote 28 page MLA cited reports at 11 at the graduate school level in four hours. And that's what excited me. Having 15, 16 year olds graduating college with 4.0's, law degrees, and passing the bar at 18, 19 years old going to medical school. >> You were surrounded by like [ __ ] genius minds. >> No, I taught them. They were C students. >> Oh, you >> started off as C stu this kid 11 year old >> 11 year old C student. He finished high school at 15. He had a high school, two-year degree at 17, bachelor's at 19, masters at 21, English professor at 22. He was a C student at 11. What changed? He learned how to learn. We don't teach learning in school. >> No, you're right. >> Tell him to learn. You don't learn, it's your fault. You go back and do the same thing harder and you still don't learn. So, you give up and you drop out. I'm teaching how to brain work so you can actually learn. And this is for normal people. people who aren't geniuses, it changes how their mind works so they can become geniuses. >> Howard Berg, the speed reader with myself and John Anderson this morning on Mornings and Live with Keith John and friends. Coming up in the second hour, Dr. John Petelli, the [ __ ] professor. And Howard Petro's got a question for you and I want to put it on here. He says, "At a page and a half a second, that's 90 pages a minute. Most 300page books are in the range of 9,000 to 11,000 words. How do you calculate 25,000 words? approximately two books a minute. >> It's more about this the number of words that it takes me a page and a a page and a half a second. So if there's more words, I read faster. There's less. It's the turning the page that slows me down. Can can I tell people if they want to take the course live online with me, you go to how are you reading.live how are you reading.live live. I do a live class every month and in four hours they will at least double where I don't charge them. They will at least double their reading speed with good comprehension. How >> Howard, I'll tell you man, our brother John Petella here who hangs out every Friday. He'll be in here in a few minutes. He actually only reads half of his books. So I'm >> put put that in context, dude. Jesus Christ. >> Let me finish. Let me finish. So maybe you could help him read all of them, man. He he buys books. He's a pet. He's and and he's if it's interesting, he'll read the whole thing. If it's not interesting, he'll he'll cut it off halfway through. But he's not wrong. One of the things >> I was going to say, our man here is going to [ __ ] totally agree with Pro. >> I tell him to speedread the book in five minutes to see if it's worth learning. >> Just like you said, a lot of it's wasted information. If it's not, go to another book. But if it is, then I teach them the strategy for learning, not just reading faster. And that like I did a graduate course in educational psychology, not a fivemonth course. I did it in seven hours and then I took the AP test which was six hours and 50 minutes and got a B+. I only needed a C minus for what I was doing. So I still I didn't do it in five minutes, but I did five months of graduate study in seven hours. So I still feel it was a good a good use. I as you sit here and listen to you talk, I realize in your position like when I when I sit here and think about books I want to read, it's because I've heard so many people talk like people that I literally literally value their opinions and their I respect them about a book that I need to read. Your your position is there's all these [ __ ] books. How do I find one that's worth my [ __ ] five minutes? Because you know it's it's like now you're he's such the opposite side of this. It's a totally different my okay I got all this list of books I want to [ __ ] read but they take me a month a piece if I [ __ ] sometimes more than that >> you know you're like okay how do I dig through this sea of [ __ ] to find the ones that I should actually invest my time in >> that's your first step >> because a lot of books don't give you what you thought they would give you and you don't that for hours or weeks later I know in five minutes this book isn't going to satisfy my needs needs. I need a different book and I'm not wasting my time on a book that doesn't provide me with information I could actually use. >> Well, you know, brother, crazy enough, like I find I read books multiple times. And I swear to God, every time I read it, it's like I [ __ ] learned so much more. I mean, I I I have yet to read a a good book like an additional time and think, "Okay, I'm done reading that." I'm like, "Fuck, I learned so much more this time than I did the last time." >> Johnny, >> give me a strategy to to get more out of it on the first read. Would that help you? >> [ __ ] yeah. Are you kidding me? >> There's only five things you need to learn. The new words, which is the vocabulary, that's about 80% of a topic you don't know anything about. The names, who's in the book, and what did they do? Third, any number, date, statistical formula, something numerical. four the five big concepts or takeaways in each section. What's the big thing here? What am I getting that I didn't know before? Five of them. You don't want to do less than five. You could do more, but five is the the cut off. And lastly, are there any questions and can I answer them? So if you know every word and what it means, every person what they did, every number and how it's used, the main ideas in every part of the book and you understand them and can answer any questions the book is asking you, you're done. And that's that's what I was teaching these youngsters to do to get their college courses in a week. >> I'm speechless. John, how many books you guys think he's read in his whole lifetime? just he's read more books in a [ __ ] weekend than I've read my whole life. >> You and me both. Just [ __ ] numbers. >> I've got I got a literally just so a heads up, brother. So, I I got a degree from University of Portland, small Catholic school up in the Northwest, and I got a major in theology. I'm one one credit shy of a minor philosophy. Didn't read a single book. See, my my I my comprehension was so low that I was like, I'm I'm never going to be able to keep up with this. So, I went to each professor. I because I was I was challenged learning, I was forced to kind of develop other ways of getting by. I became a very good problem solver. That was really one of my biggest blessings. And so, I went to each professor and I was like, "Okay, which you know, small school you can actually go knock on their [ __ ] door and see them. Big school you can't even get near these guys." But I said, "Hey, look, I how does the how does the the the you know the midterm and the final break down in percentage of information? What percentage is the lecture? What's in the book?" And if they told me 20% or less in the book, I didn't [ __ ] worry about it. I just went to the lectures, made sure I stayed awake, and took good [ __ ] notes. And that got me by most of the classes. Some of them they're like 6040 which meant I had to find somebody that knew what was in the book and I had to have conversations with them to get that information out. So me being not been able to read worth a [ __ ] really turned me get created my problem solving skill set which then allowed me to become a good entrepreneur. >> You raised a very important point. Good grades don't necessarily mean you're intelligent. It means you're good at taking tests and reading books. See you're on a show. You have talent. You're funny. You're you're conversational. What people should be asking is what makes me smart. Maybe I'm good at art. Maybe I'm a good musician like Paul McCartney. He's not a quantum physicist. It isn't about being good at everything. It's being good at something. And if people spent more time looking at their core competency, Yeah. and what they do well >> instead of worry about all the things they can't do >> but excel at something as you have and you could be a success in life. What happens with many people is because they don't do some things well they feel it reflects poorly on everything and it demeanes them in their own mind and then they don't achieve anything because they don't believe they're capable of it. where if they just focused on that thing that makes them special and developed it as far as they could take it, they'd have a more productive life. >> I you said something in there that hooks up what one of my favorite sayings is I all the time, brother, I say, look, and I say this and I really own this so that it will help other people. I was just dumb enough to believe I could do it. And what I love and what and what I love as a host is when when a segue happens when you don't even see it or know it's coming because Howard, you're talking about John's skills and where John's really good at and what he's exceptionally good at. Jimmy, let's run this committed. Howard, I like to I like to put something on the screen here often where John teaches me something and I got I got something. So John's a strong man, professional strong man. And this this guy's an expert in this. So John I I love watching John break these things down because he can teach me stuff. So you talk about committed, right? So Johnny, this guy's picking the stones. He's he's picking up like yesterday. Like look how like talk to us about this. What's he doing here? >> Well, he's very very small set of stones in the beginning. Now he's starting to lap them. So he's got to pull them up to his lap. The big Well, the big one is where we'll see if he's >> Oh yeah. >> So now he's getting challenged here. So he's going to lap it. He should be probably putting his hands over the top to change his leverage points. >> Oh yeah. >> Didn't do too much, but he did a little bit. Oh, here we go. There's another one. So the bigger it gets, the more he's got to use leverage. So, he's going to lap it. Then what he should do is regrip it, meaning grabbing over the top of the stone, which will change his leverage points. Then up. >> When you say lap it, what do you mean by John? Lap it. Look. What? >> See how he's stopping in his lap? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. The little ones, he went straight up. Wasn't even touching his body. >> Now he's got to use his body. He's got to get his hips out of this. You can't really see from from this angle, but when he regrip, there's the lap. Get it in there, baby. Now, he regrips it. He he regripped it. Now he's changing his leverage point so he can actually put his hips under it. >> Is that timed, Johnny? Is that is that a timed event? >> 100%. >> Oh, I see. I see. >> See those little ones or like those are the chickstones. Normally they don't make the dudes do those. >> I put that up there, Howard, because in many ways what you guys both do is extremely relatable. Like like Howard, John walks up to that situation and he can see it in his mind and he can solve it. You walk up to a book with a thousand words and you guys are actually the same thing. You you follow my analogy Howard? >> That's what I was saying. Find what you're good at. >> Yeah. >> He doesn't have to be the world's fastest reader to be great at something that he does. Yes. He does well. This guy probably does a reode. I could be honest. I don't think I could lift that big stone. I know you're probably shocked. Even if I put it in my lap and I used my hips really really well, I I don't think I could have gotten it on top of the barrel. Johnny, we might have a show coming up with John teaching Howard to lift, Howard teaching John to read. There could be a segment there for us to do on the show. >> Hey, I want I actually have a little bit of a I'm I'm kind of I have this thing to where with my really really lack of reading skills and comprehension is probably more of what the lack is. I can read out loud and with most books if the words are normal. I just have no [ __ ] clue what I'm reading. You want the the secret to comprehension? I could give it to you quickly. >> Okay. >> There's a concept in psychology called schema. Rather than go into technical, I'll I'll demonstrate it. I'm going to read a passage with no schema and watch how confusing this is. This is an easy thing to do. If possible, you could do it at home, but you could always go someplace else if it's necessary. Beware of overdoing it. This is a major mistake. It may cost you quite a bit of money. I haven't given you any context, so it doesn't mean anything. I'm going to read it second time with a title that has schema and watch how instantly it makes sense. Laundry. Laundry. This is an easy thing to do. If possible, you could do it at home, but you could always go someplace else if it's necessary. Beware of overdoing it. This is a major mistake and may cost you quite a bit of money. I'm training people on where these clues are. So even though they're going very quickly, these clues unlock the meaning of the bigger chunk of text. >> So even though it was confusing before, you don't have the key >> and I'm showing you where the keys are and how to unlock the confusion using those keys. So even though you're going quicker, the comprehension's quite good. So, it's almost like giving yourself framing the information before you start sucking it down. >> Yeah, >> that's I haven't heard it described that way, but yes, suck it down. I need