This week Mike talks with knowledge mastery strategist Howard Berg about some insights and tips on how you can increase your ability to learn faster, comprehend better and retain more.
Howard Berg’s Biography
Howard Stephen Berg is recognized as the world’s fastest reader thanks to the cutting-edge accelerated learning techniques he developed that turn information overload into information assets. Howard is a graduate of S.U.N.Y., Binghamton where he majored in Biology and then completed a four-year Psychology program in one year. His graduate studies at several New York City colleges focused on the Psychology of reading. Howard has appeared on over 1,100 radio and television programs including Neil Cavuto, Jon Stewart, and Live With Regis. His brain-based learning strategies have been hailed as a major breakthrough in publications like Forbe’s FYI, Selling, Men’s Health, Red Book, and Bottom Line Magazine, and have been featured in dozens of newspaper interviews throughout North America.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn…
- All information doubles every six months more is printed in one week than an all human history through the year 1800.
- A lot of people in business today use a paradigm that works and it works well for them.
- 30% of all existing jobs will be gone in five, 10 years.
- The only job security you have in today’s fast-changing information-based economy is between your ears.
- Why it’s very important that everybody learned to adapt.
- What makes most businesses fail is not competency in the core business but competency in business skills.
- You only remember 10% of what you read and 90% of what you say and do.
Quotables
- “Think of 5 million truck drivers replaced by robots. Why would they replace them? They don’t sleep. They don’t take vacation. They don’t need sick days. They don’t need any overtime. They can go 24 hours a day.” – Howard Berg
- “Your either learning new things quickly and faster and be burnishing yourself, putting yourself into a new position or you’re being obsolete in the not too distant future.” – Howard Berg
- “Today the revolution is knowledge.” – Howard Berg
- “I use reading to find what I don’t know and need to learn. I don’t want to know everything. I want to know everything I need to know. I don’t want to waste time learning things. I know already with things that I don’t need, which waste more time.” – Howard Berg
Links & Resources Mentioned…
- Howard’s Company Website – www.BergLearning.com
- Howard’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardstephenberg/
- Howard’s Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/howard.berg.988711
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Episode #61
Mike O'Neill: Welcome back to the Get Unstuck & On Target Podcast. I'm Mike O'Neill with Bench Builders and we specialize in helping leaders build the teams and the processes they need to grow their business. Joining me today is Howard Berg. Howard is the world's fastest. He's listed in the Guinness book of world records for his ability to read more than 25,000 words a minute. That's about 80 pages per minute. Now let that sink in for a moment. Howard's book, Super Reading Secrets is in its 28 reprint. For the last 35 years. Howard's been teaching people how to increase their reading speed along with comprehension. But more importantly, how to develop a total learning solution in their life. Welcome Howard.
Howard Berg: Hi, thanks for having me.
Mike O'Neill: Howard, we made a decision up front. We had an opportunity to meet probably about a month ago that we really are not going to have much in the form of a script to speak of, but when, when we talked, I love this kind of learning more about your story. You shared that you grew up in the projects of Brooklyn and like most children, you wanted to go outside and play, but it wasn't safe that the only place in your neighborhood that was safe was the library. And it was your frequent visits to the library that made you kind of what you are today. A knowledge mastery strategist.
Howard Berg: Yes, that's completely true.
Mike O'Neill: That being said, what I'd love to do while we're together. As I like for our listeners to kind of be able to get some insights on how might they increase their ability to learn faster, comprehend better and retain more. You been doing this for 35 plus years. As I understand you have appeared on over 2000, TV shows, radio programs, podcast. Now people who can't see you, you just kinda rolled your eyes on that. What have you learned after appearing 2000 plus times that has helped you be better at what you do?
Howard Berg: Well, I listen to the problems that people share with me because I'm trying to solve problems. So it really isn't about what's my problem. It's about what's your problem. It kind of falls into three categories. There's the children, people want their kids to get better educated, finished school, not live with them to their 40, which is a common thing today. More children live with their parents between 26 and 40 and a married mostly because they can't find good paying jobs. A lot of them have incredible college loans to pay back. Can't afford to pay them and pay rent, which is exorbitantly high in many areas. Another group is professionals that are overwhelmed. They're inundated with data and things they have to know to be competitive in business. And then there's seniors that want to stay mentally fit as they're getting older and that turn into vegetables. So those are like the three primary groups that I hear about they, they all have the same solution. The differences, children might read a fiction book or bio book. And business people read a spreadsheet. Seniors might read a novel. But reading, learning the memory, what you're doing with your brain is the same, just the goals and purposes and type of material that they process that varies from one to another, but there is a definite overlap in those three straighter that I described.
Mike O'Neill: Of the three, we probably will spend most of our time with the, the middle one you mentioned that is professionals. And that is, it's seems to me, as I have been thinking about our upcoming podcasts is that we're just inundated with information it's coming to us from so many different sources. And it is really hard to even get up, come to terms with how to actually kind of do that. I suspect you hear that a lot.
Howard Berg: All information doubles every six months more is printed in one week than an all human history through the year 1800. So people feel like they're getting a lot to learn their not wrong. And what works today, will might bury you tomorrow? I'll give a good example of that. The richest man in the well was the richest man with Bezos is the richest, now Elon Musk is second richest man in the world. It's hard to keep up with that. That's a good example.
Mike O'Neill: They do flip back and forth.
Howard Berg: They do flip, flop back this week. It's it's Elon Musk. So what is he really doing to make all his money? He's doing what JC Penney and Sears did in the late 18 hundreds, early 1900's. As the west became settled. There weren't a lot of stores, didn't have strip malls back in those days. So how did they get the things they needed? They use the Sears catalog, the JC petty catalog. They used the railroads, they use Wells Fargo and that's how they got the things they needed. Well, they're going bankrupt and they no longer publish their catalog. What did Jeff Bezos do? He put it online all Amazon is a JC penny catalog online. He brought it into the 21st century. Why didn't they do that? They had the infrastructure, they had the, they had the sales funnels. They had the knowledge, they had the marketing skills, even had a catalog. They never put it online. They going bankrupt. Bezos is second richest man in the world. Because he saw how to use an idea in a new way. That's what business is like. If you keep doing what worked yesterday, blockbuster was incredibly successful at putting everyone out of businesses who sold DVDs until Netflix says we don't need a store, we'll put it through the mail. And then Redbox says we don't need the mail and put it in a kiosk, but Netflix got smart. They don't really make money anymore from DVDs. Do they? They use programming. Couldn't blockbuster have done that. They had didn't they had the market, they had the customer base. They never thought of it. They were locked into a paradigm and it worked. A lot of people in business today using a paradigm that works and it works well for them. That's great. What about tomorrow? As artificial intelligence takes away more and more jobs? What are people gonna do? 30% of all existing jobs will be gone in five, 10 years. Think of 5 million truck drivers replaced by robots. Why would they replace them? They don't sleep. They don't take vacation. They don't need sick days. They don't need any overtime. They can go 24 hours a day. If you own a trucking company, you want someone who can drive 10 hours or 24 hours. But there's a different problem. When these people stop working, what are they going to do for a living? Who's going to feed them, where are they going to find housing without a job. And people who work in stores is more and more checkout clerks get replaced by kiosks, waiters, and waitresses, all the bottom level work that was the mainstay of hardworking Americans for decades maybe pretty much over a hundred years. Going to be gone. It's all going to be done by artificial intelligence. What are they going to do become neuroscientists? It's very unlikely. It seems people who want smaller government, well, that's the only thing that's going to feed you. So people who are going to be successful, are people can learn. The only job security you have in today's fast changing information based economy is between your ears. Your either learning new things quickly and faster, and be burnishing yourself, putting yourself into a new position or you're being obsolete in the not too distant future. And that's very different than anything you've ever faced in the history of mankind. We went from the agriculture revolution of farming and domestication. Then 200 years ago, we had the industrial revolution where they started with steam and mostly was, textiles and then it went into electrical. And today the revolution is knowledge. The next one's going to be artificial intelligence. And what the hell people going to do when machines get smarter and smarter and smarter. The only people who are going to find work are people who are smart enough, keep ahead of the curve. And right now that's not the majority of people. And my job is to empower them with skills that'll give them that ability so they could stay marketable and employable, when everyone else would be looking around saying what happened. They can't find a job.
Mike O'Neill: You make a very compelling argument. Why it's very important that everybody learned to adapt. Let's in terms of our listeners, these are decision makers. These are leaders. These are folks who want to learn and grow. But they may not know how to go about doing that. In terms of how to strengthen what's between the ears as you called that. You're an author. So obviously you are a strong proponent of getting information via books. But you develop a capability to read, not just fast, but to read and comprehend. Why might that skill be helpful to our listeners to cultivate?
Howard Berg: I'm going to answer the question in two parts. Books are actually becoming obsolete, books are like records. We're seeing more e-readers. Very, very few people are buying physical books. So I just did a new program this week. And how to learn online using a Kindle, phone, laptop, iPad. That's where people are reading. There are still people reading books, but the majority most reading today is online. You talk to a college student, they don't have books. Everything is online. So there's a good example of an industry that's, revolutionarily changing in a very, very short amount of time. Well, the answer, the other part of your question is we've learned more about the brain in the last 10 years than all of history. How much of it's percolated into the business place in terms of increasing productivity, understanding, creativity innovation. Which is desperately needed to stay competitive countries where we're being outstripped in other ways. Labor is so much cheaper in many Asian countries. The reason people losing jobs is because people here are giving the jobs away. It's just more profitable say, well, why don't they keep him here? Because they can't compete in a global market. Everyone else is using cheap labor and you're paying people 20, 30, $40 an hour here to do the same job. You can't produce products in a competitive way. So you have to lay people off and go to the cheap labor or become obsolete anyway. So these are real problems that people are facing. But the real answer is not to get obsolete, but to learn new skills, learn how to think faster grow faster. Most people, when they want to make more money, work more hours, or they work more jobs. It's inefficient. Wanna make more money. Learn a new skill it pays better. You make more money as a neurosurgeon than a dishwasher. Both people work. Digging trenches say in the desert of New Mexico in July. It's hard work. They don't make the same money as a neurosurgeon. And they physically doing a whole lot more, but the knowledge that they have is much less. And so in today's world, it's really what you know, and understand. Another thing that will make you successful is not marketing skills, business skills. What makes most businesses fail is not competency in the core business but competency in business skills. So you have an outstanding plumber, who's great at plumbing, but it's no knowledge of how to get customers. You can have a mediocre plumber who's fantastic at sales and marketing, having an incredibly good year as he's building up his, his business. Because he knows how to get more and more people buy his products. So one of my, one of my mentors in business was Dan Kennedy we're good friends, I used to lecture with him in Zig Ziglar years ago. And he would say she would always ask the question, instead of saying, I'm a doctor I'm in the business of medicine. Or instead of saying, I'm a bookkeeper, I'm in the business of, of bookkeeping. Because the first thing in your business is business. And learning how to build the business, create new customers innovate create new services, create more revenue, streams, diversify. That's what businesses need to be doing. If you're competent at what you do today, don't count on that working tomorrow. Just ask blockbuster what happens when you're the best and someone else comes out with a new widget that works a little bit better. So yeah. Ultimately it's your capacity to learn new things. Now there's two things we learned from and learn from reading, which may not be books. As I mentioned, it could be e-readers. And from the people, people, we, we associate with the people we study with, that's where our learning comes from. And reading by itself is not learning. That's another misnomer. Once everyone reading a book would get an a, and that isn't what happens, is it, so what is it then? And I can tell you what I'm doing differently. I use reading to find what I don't know and need to learn. I don't want to know everything. I want to know everything I need to know. I don't want to waste time learning things. I know already with things that I don't need, which waste more time. So knowing what your goal and purpose is, that's key. Now I'm reading 2, 3, 4 times faster. That's that's something a normal person can learn to do in a very short amount of time. I had an 84 year old read 3 books in three hours. So it's a normal ability. It's not extraordinary. And now, you know what you're looking for. You're going to read through it four times faster. How do you deal with something when you don't understand it? You read the calculus book, you can't perform, it can solve a problem. You know, the equations, you memorize them. How do you use them? You have no idea. That's, that's not the same thing. That's comprehension and understanding. How do you handle that. Now you understand. How do you remember it so when you actually need to use your information, you didn't forget it. And one of the other keystones it's the big one, emotional intelligence. If you're in the wrong state of mind, even though you have the right information, it may not work. If I teach you to drive and you're ready to pass road test and you fail why'd you fail. I got nervous it was a test, many people panic taking exams or speaking in public. Many businesses are run by people who are shy. They don't feel comfortable in public or speaking to people. Those things will keep you from being successful. That's an emotional intelligence issues. So when you consider all those things, emotional intelligence, memory, understanding, reading faster, knowing what is important, what to prioritize, and how to use it and apply it when you need it. Now you've got a learning solution, not just studying about reading books, which is most business could care less. If their people read faster. What they're interested in is knowledge management, data, knowing what to do with it, how to use it to stay ahead of the competition, how to innovate fast, to bring products to market quicker. Those are all key core profit centers in a business. Reading by itself that's not what people are interested in. So I'm more focused on the business focus of knowledge management and using information to build a company, grow the company and stay competitive. Which speed reading is one of the blades in this Swiss army knife. It isn't the entire knife. If it was, it wouldn't work.
Mike O'Neill: You know, I introduced you as the world's fastest reader. And if we stop there, we've obviously missed a whole point. You've stressed yes, reading is vitally important. If you can read faster, that's even better, but you're stressing importance that what you read, you've got to build to understand. What you understand you gotta a be able to retain and what you retain, you gotta be able to act on. So if I'm hearing that correctly, Howard this is maybe an unfair question, but we've been talking about building kind of a case for why we should even consider getting better at this. If someone reaches out to you and your organization and you, or your folks begin helping them with that. Kind of walk us through so that the listeners better understand how does, how do you help them get better at reading faster, understanding what their reading, comprehending it so they can recall it and use it. How does that kind of work for you?
Howard Berg: Well, first I show them the mechanics of going quicker which is what everyone does, but that's very ineffective in the big picture. So what happened with programs like Evelyn Woods, you get faster, but then you'd learn something you didn't know. You slowed down to learn it and lost your speed. It was all or nothing because it was based on conditioning. The guy who owned Evelyn Woods was a Maurice Thompson Junior. He hired me to teach his, son my system that you wouldn't pair speed read with speed learning, bringing in a 21st century. So I'm looking at the mind. And how does the mind make sense out of meaning in the text? How does it understand it has to comprehend it? How does it apply it? How does it use it in new and unique ways? Creative ways we can discuss some of those techniques in more detail if you want. So now we've got faster reading. We know what we're looking for. We know how the mind makes sense out of what it's looking for. Whenever we're looking at another issue, which is memory retention, I'll give you an example. Have you ever been in a place where they give you good information when you got home, you didn't remember it. And what happened? People assume they provide people good information facts that are solid, that that's the solution. No, that's only one part. You also have to show them how to remember those facts when they need to use. A lot of the problems you're having in companies people don't remember what you told them. And they're not using it the way you told them to use it. And part of that is also on emotions. If people in the wrong frame of mind to do what you told them, they're going to fail. So if I don't, if I teach you to drive me, you fail the road test cause you got nervous. That's a good example. What if I didn't just teach you how to drive, how to stay relaxed and calm taking the roadtest. How many more successful graduates would they have, how many were referrals would they get. There key areas, businesses are missing using language that's meaningful and significant to their client base, not just to them. So if I use a word like SEO, you might know and I might know. Does everyone in this country know what that means? No. And often the people who need it the most don't even know what it is, which is why they need it. So when you start throwing words around that have meaning and significance to you, but not your clients and prospects, you're not creating rapport, you're confusing and alienating them. So you have to use vocabulary and information that's meaningful and significant in their world. Not yours. You have to not just tell them what they need to know, but how to know it when they need to know it. And you have to prepare to show them how to create a right state to use this successfully. And not presume everybody being told the right thing is going to do the right thing, that they're not going to get nervous or frustrated or confused or lack focus, and concentration, which is needed to do what you just told them the correct way. All of those are skills that can be taught an learned and aren't in most businesses, they just presume those things will flow. And that's where many the business problems are right now in most companies.
Mike O'Neill: So Howard of the three that you just mentioned, which do you find people struggle with the most?
Howard Berg: I'm going to say probably retention. You know, your doctor gives you a list of things an you go home you don't remember what they were. You remember some of them, but not all of them. That's a good example.
Mike O'Neill: Why don't we go with that for a moment? So retention, I know that we can only scratch the surface here, but what might be some things that you would be sharing with folks that you work with that helps improve retention?
Howard Berg: Why don't we do it? Instead of talk about, I can actually do one, would that be better?
Mike O'Neill: Much better.
Howard Berg: Much more than just saying what I do, show how I do. I'm going to give you 10 things to remember. I won't to show you how. Then I'll show you how and instantly not only will you remember it, but effortlessly. And by the way, this is so simple. You can literally teach this to a three-year-old literally, and they will learn it. Now this is not an exercise. This is a tool. So I give you two caveats. You only remember 10% of what you read and 90% of what you say and do. So what I'm going to ask you to say and do, do that because you're going to want to remember this, this is a tool. And first of I'll, give me the 10 things. Then I'll tell you how to learn them. You want to remember pole, shoes, tricycle, car, glove, gone, die, skate, cat and bowling pins. And most people will not remember all 10. They might remember two, three, a good expert might do, four, but all 10 backwards forwards any sequence, probably not. Now let's learn the secret. This is thousands of years old. I mentioned a lot of this is new, but this is old. The Greeks discovered if you take a list, you know, that's hanging in your memory, what do you do with a hanger? You hang things on it. I'm going to bet Mike, you and our audience can count to 10. I feel confident that I'm right. And we're going to use 10 numbers that are hanging in memory to learn 10 things really fast. The first thing is the number one, it looks like the pole, like a flag pole, or a lamp pole. When I say one, you say pole. One.
Mike O'Neill: Pole.
Howard Berg: And make sure if you're watching you do this because you won't remember it by looking you learn by doing two is shoes, you wear two shoes. What's two?
Mike O'Neill: Shoes.
Howard Berg: What's one?
Mike O'Neill: Pole.
Howard Berg: Perfect. Three is a tricycle, three wheels. What's three?
Mike O'Neill: Tricycle.
Howard Berg: Two?
Mike O'Neill: Shoes.
Howard Berg: One?
Mike O'Neill: Pole.
Howard Berg: For the car, there's four tires on a car. What's four?
Mike O'Neill: Car.
Howard Berg: Two, two?
Mike O'Neill: Shoes.
Howard Berg: One?
Mike O'Neill: Pole.
Howard Berg: Three?
Mike O'Neill: Tricycle.
Howard Berg: Seeing pictures. Your probably picturing it while I'm doing it. That's normal. Five is a glove. How many fingers are in a glove?
Mike O'Neill: Five.
Howard Berg: What's five?
Mike O'Neill: Glove.
Howard Berg: Three?
Mike O'Neill: Tricycle.
Howard Berg: What's one?
Mike O'Neill: Pole.
Howard Berg: Getting easier brains learning six gun. They loved them in Texas when I lived there. Cowboys like six guns. What's six?
Mike O'Neill: Six gun.
Howard Berg: Four?
Mike O'Neill: Car.
Howard Berg: Two?
Mike O'Neill: Shoes.
Howard Berg: Perfect sevens lucky in dice. Seven dice, seven dice. What's seven?
Mike O'Neill: Dice.
Howard Berg: Five giving you a clue.
Mike O'Neill: Glove.
Howard Berg: Right glove. Three?
Mike O'Neill: Tricycle.
Howard Berg: One?
Mike O'Neill: Pole.
Howard Berg: Rhymes work.. Say eight skate.
Mike O'Neill: Eight skate.
Howard Berg: What's eight?
Mike O'Neill: Skate.
Howard Berg: Good six? What did they love in Texas?
Mike O'Neill: Six gun.
Howard Berg: Four?
Mike O'Neill: Car.
Howard Berg: Two?
Mike O'Neill: Shoes.
Howard Berg: Perfect. Almost done. Nine is the number of lives that cat has. Nine is a cat what's nine?
Mike O'Neill: Cat.
Howard Berg: Everyone was lucky in what game?
Mike O'Neill: Dice.
Howard Berg: Five?
Mike O'Neill: Glove.
Howard Berg: Three?
Mike O'Neill: Tricycle.
Howard Berg: One?
Mike O'Neill: Pole.
Howard Berg: This one's 10. How many pins in a bowling game?
Mike O'Neill: 10.
Howard Berg: Only pins. What's 10?
Mike O'Neill: Pins.
Howard Berg: What's one?
Mike O'Neill: Pole.
Howard Berg: Two?
Mike O'Neill: Shoes.
Howard Berg: Three?
Mike O'Neill: Tricycle.
Howard Berg: Four?
Mike O'Neill: Car
Howard Berg: Five?
Mike O'Neill: Hand, glove.
Howard Berg: Well, you learn. That's how you learn. It's okay. That's how the brain remembers. Six. What did they love it, Texas?
Mike O'Neill: Six shooters.
Howard Berg: Sevens lucky in?
Mike O'Neill: Dice.
Howard Berg: Eight rhymes with?
Mike O'Neill: Skate.
Howard Berg: Nine is a?
Mike O'Neill: Cat.
Howard Berg: What was 10?
Mike O'Neill: Pens.
Howard Berg: Okay. Here's how you use this. This is to speed learn numbers, which are very important in business. Imagine you're in a hotel and your room is 314. How many times when you left the building, you forgot what room you were in. So you turn numbers to pictures. Three is a tricycle, one is a pole, four is a car. Make a movie, a tricycle hits a pole on a car, picture it. Tricycle hits a pole on a car. Tricycle. What number?
Mike O'Neill: Three.
Howard Berg: Hits a pole.
Mike O'Neill: One.
Howard Berg: On a car.
Mike O'Neill: Four.
Howard Berg: That's your hotel. Tricycle, pole, car. It's also PI and geometry 3.14. So I use it for kids for school for math, science, history. Business due dates, percentages, taxes, phone numbers and the zero. Cause the alphabet in numbers is zero to nine. That's it? Zero is the 10 bowling pins and everything else is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. So now your pictures for every number, you stream the pictures together in a movie in a funny or meaningful way, play your movie and convert the pictures and there's your number.
Mike O'Neill: Now I would have heard that referred to as, as a mnemonic device, is that the right term?
Howard Berg: That's not a pneumonic. That's called pegging. Pneumonics work too. Like, I'll give you a good example. When we were studying the cause of the rainbow, we did ROYGBIV, Roy red, orange, yellow, G green, blue, indigo, violet. I used it in biology. I majored in psychobiology, did a full year psych program and one year while majoring in biology. So I had to learn the nine attributes of the living system. Well, the brain is not comfortable learning more than seven at a time. Anything bigger than seven is really pushing the limits of memory. So here's a pneumonic and it means it's the first letter of each of the nine things SMMIGRSAC. Now I didn't even have a lot of vowels to work with. So SIM S M M specific organization, metabolism movement. IGR I G R irritability, growth, reproductions. SAC, specialization, adaptation, control. I learned those nine things in 1967 and I learned them in three minutes. It's 2021. I still know them because I made it easy for my brain to learn and remember. This is just a good example of how the brain likes to store and retrieve data. There's many ways there isn't one way to learn. It depends on your aptitude. It depends on your background and history and prior experience. If you're a biologist reading, advanced biology, it's easier than an art major reading, an advanced biology book and it's easier for the art major you to read a book on technical art training than a biologist because the background and experiences the talents differ. So what you do in a subject that, you know, have an extensive background in is not what you do in a subject that you know nothing about. Don't know any words, don't know any names, don't know any formula, everything's from scratch. It's basically a foreign language. Like a Agelaius phoeniceus. That's a biological term. Do I know it? Yeah, you probably wouldn't. It's a red wing Blackbird, but for biologists, that makes sense. So every industry has that nomenclature words that have deepen significant meaning to the industry, but not to the world at large. And so the more we understand that, language, the faster we can read, the less we need to memorize because we know what we're looking for. We don't know that's new and innovative and useful. So reading isn't one thing. Reading and material where we have extensive knowledge is different than reading a material we know nothing at all. And I show people how to adjust the reading strategy, the memory strategy, the, the learning strategy, depending on how much time do you have and how much depth do you need? Are you a surgeon learning a new surgical method? It might take 15, 16 hours to perform. It's a whole different thing than someone reading the funny papers. They're both reading, but they're not going to do the same thing the same way they won't get the right outcome. If the person meaning the funny paper reads like the surgeon is no fun. The surgeon reads like the person reading, the funny papers, they're going to kill someone. So everyone needs to have a flexible approach. And also based on your learning style, how does your brain want to learn? How does your brain feel comfortable learning. So by creating a program that adjusts to the learner and their learning style and they're learning needs and what they're currently learning, you can get much better results. So what I teach companies is how to increase productivity by learning the information a decisions based on. So their ahead of what the competition is doing, they're doing what, what Netflix did to blockbuster to their competition. And when someone comes along like red box, they're rebranding, they're moving in a new direction before they go out of business. And that's what businesses today. It changes on a dime and nobody knows what tomorrow will bring except change. And people who are able to change quickly, adapt, stay ahead of the curve are going to be fine. Everyone else is going to find themselves wondering what happened to their businesses.
Mike O'Neill: Matter a fact that may be a great transition point. And that is if they find themselves doing that, they may find themselves stuck. Can you reflect on, you've had a, such a fascinating life thus far. You've met so many different people in so many different settings. You've helped organizations of all types. Can you think of an example where perhaps you or a client got stuck. And what did you do to get them or help them get unstuck?
Howard Berg: Actually, I can, I'll go back to when I was a kid and I grew up in the projects it was very violent. I said it was west side story without the music and dancing. I had knives to my throat, literally. I, I had, I was beaten with bats one day. I was chased with four people with baseball bats to rob me. I was mugged so many times that it's a normal day. I mean, I was mugged over a hundred times.
Mike O'Neill: My goodness.
Howard Berg: My dad was pistol whipped. I mean, it was, it's pretty, we moved when they raped an 88 year old, man.When I tell you it was bad. That's bad. And it's beyond most people's. You Google east New York and you'll find it, it's like the wild west. . There were people in my neighborhood, their hobby was killing people. That was their hobby. They, they did drive by shootings. They were on the cutting edge. They did drive bys before anyone else we innovated it.
Mike O'Neill: I shouldn't laugh. But that is funny.
Howard Berg: So it was bad. So I'll be honest with you. I fell into very deep depression and anxiety, you know, if you think someone's out to get you and then, and they're not, that's called paranoia. What if, if they are. Imagining you go out and they're there andthey're out to get you, we beat the hell out of you that's not in your mind. You're physically being assaulted.
Mike O'Neill: Yes.
Howard Berg: Now what, and it's not one person. It's thousands of people in gangs. You hurt one of them. You're dead. And literally you die. You don't survive. That's the end of your life. That's pretty hard to grow up with. You have to kind of just accept that you're going to get pummeled and beaten and do nothing about it or die. Those are your two options accept it or die. So it creates a lot of emotional strain. So I had a lot of issues as a child growing up with that. It's like being in a war zone, you know, we literally, your life is being threatened and you're not imagining it is it's physically being threatened. Well, I discovered how to break that state. And I thought I'd share that. One of the things I studied was the brain and how it works. When you have a negative state like depression or fear or anxiety, a lot of people say, I'm not going to be afraid, or I'm not going to be depressed, or I'm not going to be nervous. That is the worst thing you can do. The unconscious brain doesn't process not. I'm going to show you, I'm going to control your mind, right now? I'm telling you I'm going to do it. Everyone hearing knows I'm going to do it. And there's nothing you can do to stop me. Don't think of Mickey mouse, eating pizza and what happened?
Mike O'Neill: He's got a big pepperoni pizza.
Howard Berg: That's what negatives do to the brain. When you say no or don't, that's exactly what it will do. The negative word disappears. And the brain has think of Mickey mouse, eating a pizza. Think of being depressed think of being nervous, think of being anxious. The more you fight it, the more you try to turn it off, the more powerful and controlling it will become. And that's anything, any fear, any negativity, any, any phobia? How do you get rid of them? First realize there is no fear in the world. There is no anxiety in the world. It's all between our ears. We're creating it. It isn't here. It's in our head. Our brain manufactures it and our brain sustains it by thinking about it, the way you eliminate a negative thought. A negative state, negative of fear is think of the opposite. I'm calm. I'm serene. I'm blissful. No matter how nervous or anxious you are at the time you focus on I'm calm. I'm serene. I'm blissful. Instead of depression, I'm happy. I'm joyful. I'm optimism. Wherever your mind focuses that's what life becomes. If you're focusing on joy and bliss and relaxation, it builds you're feeding it. It doesn't live except when you feed it. So you can create depression and fear by thinking about it. Or you can create bliss and relaxation by thinking about that. Whatever it is you're thinking about, that's where your mind will be. And as you focusing on the state, you wish to go into, instead of the state that you're already in over time, it's not a magic trick that goes away tomorrow. Over time, the negative state, because of lack of attention and lack of focus, it doesn't have life. It atrophies, it loses any energy because all that energy is pouring into the opposite thought that you actually want. So you have two choices, you can continue creating the state that's debilitating and paralyzing you in life, holding you back, or you can feed the state that will move you forward in a healthy, productive way. And I was fortunate to find out that this works and to create it I had some great teachers and studied psychobiology and spent a lot of time learning about the mind and consciousness. And this is the way out of any dark alley. And everyone has that in their life. There's something that pulls them down an event a circumstance, something we all have bad days. But we have the power, the power to create the opposite and create good days and positive days and positive thinking. So we can unstick ourselves by following what I just said. Focus on what you want and what you can create instead of what's destroying you. And the more you focus on what you want to be as if it's already happening right now, because literally there's only one time. Now. Einstein said future and past pastor an illusion. Every decision you made is in the present. Every action you've ever taken is in the present. Nothing is done except in the present, nothing exists except the present. And what you do in the present determines whether your stuck or unstuck. You have the freedom to choose where your mind will go and what your mind will do. And the choice that you make will determine the circumstances of your entire life.
Mike O'Neill: Howard you so aptly brought this conversation full circle. This has been really, really fascinating. I was looking forward to the conversation, but I'm sitting here just listening. And I know our listeners are doing the same. If folks want to learn more about you and how you help individuals and how you help organizations, what's the best way for them to reach out to you.
Howard Berg: Two ways my programs are at berglearning. Like my name Howard Berg, berglearning.com. There's some free lessons. It'll help them read, learn and understand faster. I mentor companies. I'm like an acting CLO. They have things they need to learn quickly. They gave me, I'm doing a law case right now that have a million pages that need to be read for this case. I can read it and I can tell them which of those pages they need to be looking at to win. They, they don't have time to pay a lawyer 800 dollars an hour to look at all those materials. I'll look through them. I'll find the pages that are relevant to that case, and I'll highlight it. This is really where you want to be going with this case. The rest of this, isn't going to be relevant when you go to court, this is, this is what you're actually looking for. This is what's going to win. So if a company wants to innovate, they want to create new programs, new products. I wrote a book in a day. I could teach them how to write a book in a day, which creates you as, as an authority, as someone to be listened to, to differentiate you from others in your niche. So I work, I mentor companies on how to increase productivity through learning faster and understanding and being more innovative, understanding what directions they can take, empowering them with more positive ideas and thinking things that no one's doing. I'm the only one doing this really. And so they can go to howard@berglearning.com is my email. Or they can go to berglearning.com to try the programs the guaranteed there risk free. We provide support. I'm the president of my rotary club. So we actually want to make sure people come, they learn what they paid for. I'm big on that. Why should you pay for something you didn't get? So I want to make sure they actually learn what they paid for and when my team can fix it, I personally do it. The two reasons, one, you never want to have to make a refund. So I want to know what went wrong because whatever happened one, I want to fix it. And two, I want to make sure it never happens again, if that's my responsibility. So I listened to what people tell me. I make changes in the next iteration to reflect what I know will work better. And over 35 years, we don't get a lot of people who don't learn. Because I've already made the adjustments and heard all the problems and they fix them. And I know what works and that's what I do. I try to provide people with what I think is a world-class learning ability to know understand, implement, innovate, innovate, very, very important. And that's what I'm doing.
Mike O'Neill: You've done that so aptly by spending time with me and our listeners, thank you, Howard.
Howard Berg: Thanks for having me.
Mike O'Neill: I also want to thank our listeners for joining us for this episode. Every Thursday, we upload the latest episode to all the major platforms. So if you haven't already please subscribe. But if you're an entrepreneur with big dreams, but you're tired of letting your business keep you up all night, it's time to take action. Head to bench-builders.com to schedule a quick call. We'll explore ways to help you solve your people and process problems so you can, again focus on growing your business. So I'd like to thank you for joining us. And I hope you've picked up on some tips from Howard that will help you Get Unstuck & On Target. Until next time.