Articles
Browse every published article connected to Hal Wechsler, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
Articles
Browse every published article connected to Hal Wechsler, or search within this exact expert archive.
Personality Type? We taught two separate classes recently, one with kids (12-15), and the othe executives at a Fortune 500 airline corporation. Here’s the connection – we inquired of the kids – ‘Do you experience stress much in you daily life?’ One hundred ...
How Can a Fake Smile Produce Health And Avoid Stress? Howard Hughes owned a major airline called Pan-American World Airways from the 1930s to December 4, 1991. Pan-Am required all its flight attendants (Stewardesses) to be thin, attentive, and consistently smile at the passengers. Of course it was a phony smile, and became recognized as a Pan-Am Smile. All their advertising revealed beautiful young women exposing their pearly white teeth standing in front of massive airplanes. There are two types of smiles: the Pan-Am toothy, forced Smile.
My Favorite Two Words R – So What? One of my law professors once called me a Miscreant, and Irncould not get mad until I looked it up. It turns out I was evil, depraved, wicked, and base. Wait – immoral, degenerate, a villain, and a rascal. Latin: beyond belief. It was political. Get this: words are not just empty, random letters arbitrarily constructed. Hearing, reading, speaking emotional words (positive-negative-neutral) involuntarily trigger our brain into moods and behaviors. Hardwired or conditioned? Why should you believe me?
Save Your Eyes How many folks take a do-it-yourself program or self-help workshop and go to thennext step of using the new knowledge in every day life? No more than 8% of learners will put their new skills into practical use. Why did they spend their money and time in the first place, if they ...
Save Your Eyes How many folks take a do-it-yourself program or self-help workshop and go to thennext step of using the new knowledge in every day life? No more than 8% of learners will put their new skills into practical use. Why did they spend their money and time in the first place, if they ...
Scary Experiences & Pain Are Gone in 30-Seconds • 1. “Gettoutahere!” you are Not a medical doctor, psychologist, or ophthalmologist, what the hell do you know about pain removal or trauma?” - he yelled at me. • 2. “Right-on. I suggest you go to your physician, or get a referral to a psychiatrist or an eye-specialist for your ailment. I got enough difficulty with five new contracts, and Speed Reading101 training workshops.” • 3. This conversation was important because we have a disclaimer on everything we do. We aint doctors, and what we teach is informational, not meant for treatment.r
What is The Chain-Reaction For Personal Success If you learn this baby-easy system to use your electromagnetic field RHYTHM consciously – you have a strategy to change (improve) almost anything and everything in your life. Right, and cows can fly and drop off their milk! What is your Rhythm? First, we have a rhythm for everything we love and a different one for everything we dislike. Wait – do you want change in your life of health-money-better relationships? If you can switch to a positive (love) rhythm to things you hate in your life, you change your thinking,r
Civilization is based on Homo sapiens ability to make millisecond decisions to act or refrain from reacting. Can you recall an instance when your wanted to punch out someone’s lights, and stopped in mid-stride? For dieters, willpower is reacting to your desire to eat nthree Hershey bars ...
How to Hum Your Way Back to Health Can you keep an open mind about knowledge that is NOT scientific? I have to force myself not to giggle at beliefs and practices of non-scientific cultures. But, recent research on Tibetan practices have proven as real as a heart attack. Do you have to be a computer scientist to surf the Internet and make satisfying discoveries? How about being an electrical engineer in order to throw the light switch? Do you need a degree from Ford on auto mechanics to drive your car? Physical Healing
Immediate Gratification About Your Future? Henny-Penny, the sky is falling. Washington Mutual and Wachovia have gone belly-up, and General Motors fell from $27.23 to $4.83, from 2007 to 2008. McCain admits it is all a mystery to him, and Obama looks presidential by being calm and promising a ...
“What’s Jana’s Secret for Acing School & Career?” • 1. “I want to explain the steps to juicing up your brain.” • 2. “It’s easier to perform, than to analyze. Do you have an ‘algorithm,’ like 1-2-3?” • 3. “Here’s what you DO. The “how” of it. • First step, take your left index finger & thumb & grab your right-earlobe. Now cross-over your right arm, & make an “X” with both arms. • Second step, take your right index finger & thumb & seizer Your left-earlobe. Your index-fingers are on top of the earlobes, between the thumbs.”
“Both Cannabis & Chronic Stress Blow-Out Our Motivation” • 1. “But I’m smart, hardworking, why can’t I win success?” • 2. “Snap answer: you run away from Obstacles and your Mind-Set (Attitude) in not in alignment with Coping.” • 3. “I have no idea what “Obstacles, Attitude & Coping” even mean in this context. You are using “abstract” words that do not paint a mental picture. Be ‘concrete’.” • 4. “We both believe in science, right? I just read research that might clarify our feelings of getting dumped on, loneliness, and not winning our dreams.”
When you want to pick up the butter knife your Bicep and Tricepnmuscles work in pairs and in opposition, right? One extends, causing the other to contract or your motor function fails, and you are buttering your wrist. We have two different brain circuits for risk and reward, and they are ...
Two Significant Discoveries in 2008 You Can Use Yes or no? You and your Significant-Other will bentrying to lose 10 pounds or more for the rest of nyour life. It’s a pretty good bet you will be testing onenfad diet or another ad infinitum because 60% of the U.S. population (300 million) ...
Speed Reading: Got Learning? Do you have an Inquiring Mind? We know the answer is yes - or you would be snoozing or playing video games. Are you aware that having an Inquiring Mind changes your brain’s structure and function? Experience and learning constantly rearrange your brain ...
Actors & The Laws of Memory I sat at this Broadway Theater and saw an impossible one-man show. Impossiblenbecause the actor recited his lines for 90 minutes without making one (1) memory mistake. Can you imagine you-or-me reciting Shakespeare from memory withoutnreading off a prompting ...
Speed Reading: Got Positive Persuasion? Executives in particular, and the rest of us most of the time, are in the business of persuading, influencing, and convincing folks, agreed? Salespeople of course, but lawyers and doctors have a vested interest in getting others to follow their ...
How Ben Franklin Invented Speed ReadingnAnd How it Can Improve Your Productivity There are six secret strategies to reading and remembering three (3)nbooks in the time others can hardly finish one. In the 300 millio U.S. population, only 20% are interested in personal growth, if younare one of ...
How to Gesture And Double Your Communication Skills Adults are learners too, so how do we get our point across (comprehension) without sounding like a dominating school teacher? If you visit your doctor and he says your x-rays are Benign, you are a lot happier than if he says the results are Malignant, right? Benign means Healthful, Good, Favorable or Friendly. Malignant, on the other hand, means Bad, Harmful, Diseased or Lethal. But you know that. What if your doctor says the results are Benign, and air-writes with hisr
Self-Defense: what is a Skunkgun? Statistics put me to sleep, but stories stick in your mind and teach us something. First, who says so, because being a Contrarian I figure folks make up numbersnto sell something. The New York Times 10.12.07 reported a bunch of numbersnthat grabbed my 3-pound ...
Why Resiliency Decides If You Get H1N1 Flu And Survive Yaacov Stern, professor at Columbia University Medical Center offers research that even though the brain has amyloidal plaques and neurofibrillary tangles –rnsigns of Alzheimer, patients with Cognitive Reserve will survive and thrive. Resiliency is a characteristic of folks who bounce back from disease, depression and chronic stress to enjoy life and its pleasures.
See in your mind’s eye your computer functioning by your point-and-clickncommands following the internal software programs controlling operations. If younclick Edit and then Select All, your hardware does not respond with a messagen“I don’t feel like it today.” It’s ...
Bill Smith, the manager and team leader at a Fortune 500 company rarely hires young recruits. He doesn’t trust them to make the right business decisions. He’s not prejudice, and has made young hires in the past, but it just didn’t work out. “Young executives just ...
“How Daydreaming Success, Overcomes Impulsive Acts” • 1. “Pop, what’s with this stuff on “immediate-gratification”, and impatience? Doesn’t every sane person want “it” now, not later?” • 2. “You wanna fight or hear the latest neuroscience. Good. When you’re a little kid, you don’t analyze, and want it now, and give up the future. Mature folks will give up the present benefit, if the future” reward” is worth it.” • 3. “The only we know for sure is what is in my hand. The future is not guaranteed, huh?”
A Second Aha! Experience 1. “Counselor Wechsler – please rise and listen carefully. How many legs does a lamb have?” 2. “Dean Reppy, I have never personally met a lamb and counted his/her limbs. I defer to someone with farm experience.” 3. “You have seen pictures, movies, videos of lambs, is that correct?” You do not deny the lamb creature in question has legs?” 4. “Yes, Dean Reppy, but I never stopped in midstream to count their legs, which undoubtedly propels its lamb body.” 5.
Why Kids Must Cheat in School When G.W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind law on January 8, 2002, he set the standard for test scores deciding the future for schools and students. Produce good test numbers or no government money. Deliver or perish was the message from Washington, D.C. Superintendents of school met with Principals, who held Town Halls with their Teachers, who gave an earful to students each-and-every-day.
(Don’t Laugh) - Can Specific Words Change Your Body’s Behavior? The latest neuroscience research makes skeptics nervous. And you and I are both skeptics, right? The normal (standard) mind-body connection for interpersonal communication is? All information transfer between humans is managed by our five (5) senses. If I cannot see, hear, touch or feel it, smell or taste it – I don’t accept it. Now that’s standard science like cause-and-effect. Maybe not.
We constantly update the latest research on brain processing – and what it tells us about the simple – stupid, act of smiling is worth your time. Fact: you cannot think negative thoughts with a Echt (real) smile on your puss. Credit UCLA researchers with experiments proving the power of actively changing the muscles used on your facial expression. There are two-kinds of smiling – you gotta know the difference. 1. Pan-Am phony smile is just using the muscles of your mouth. It was invented by an old airline (Pan-Am) for their Flight-Attendants.
Secrets of the Woman Who Lived Longest – Documented 122 yearsr And What’s In-It-For-You. • 1. You can claim you are the oldest living human, but French woman, Jeanne Louise Calment, had the records to prove it. • 2. What did Ms. Calment do, that you & I can duplicate for health & longevity. She remained healthy and with all-her-marbles, until she kicked-the-bucket at 122. Nice, right? • 3. For Brainiacs & the Impatient: three (3) unique behaviors: • a) added Extra Virgin Olive Oil to “everything” she ate, but milk. She even rubbed it all over her skin - daily.
How to Stay Happy 24/7 & Add 10-Years to Your Longevity Did your Mom walk around the house singing out loud half the time, and smiling the rest? See if you remember this: a French lady namedr Jeanne Calment died in 1997. Her birth and death were documented. She was the oldest person who ever lived – documented, not hot air. How old was she? Age 122 years. My Mom lived to 92 – not bad right? Mom had three sets of facial muscles she always exercised: Risorius (laughingr
Use These “3”, & Your Willpower Makes You a Brainiac • 1. “Tell me what makes SpeedReading101 work.” • 2. “You control the three (3) elements of your life, & work them. Do you really care, or just want to focus on the “take-away”, the end-results?” • 3. “If I’m going to be an expert “instructor” to corporate executives, I really want the “theory” behind SpeedReading101.” • 4. “Simplicity means how to explain a complex subject so that a smart 10-year-old kid gets it.” Here are the three (3) parts that produce SpeedReading101. Get-it-now.
Do Inquiring Minds Know This? A hobby that feeds my sense of curiosity is collecting facts and definitions nobody else knows or cares about. Statistics 1. The human body has 60,000 miles of blood vessels for circulation. If you Google it, scientific research papers quote this number for the past decade. How do they know? Vas You Dere Sharlie? That’s almost three-times around the planet. We must be very important entities. 2. Our lungs are filled with Alveoli – tiny air sacs that exchange rncarbon dioxide for oxygen. Good idea.
Motivate Yourself to Ace Studying or Test Taking If you had a scientific formula to ace your exams andnmotivate yourself to study, and it took about five-minutes,nwould you use it? All of us have days when we are procrastinators, feelnbored and tired, and just want to hang out and do ...
“Can Imagination Change Your Reality – See & Hear?” • 1. Michael, (my youngest son), “Which is more powerful, which do you trust more, “Imagination”, or your experiences?” • 2. “No question, what I see, hear, & feel,” Mike shot back. • 3. “Remember this: your three most powerful learning tools (senses) are V-A-K, Visual-Auditory-Kinesthetic. • 4. Kinesthetic Learning includes tactile, touch, feelings & emotions. Tasting & smelling are a distant four & five. Get this: when you take notes with a pen or type, you activate V-A-K.
How to be Outrageous And Win The Prize Called Mo… Do you delete 90% of your emails unread? Me too, because Clutter wastes my time and makes feel like a Mooch (patsy, jerk). What makes us stop to read the other unsolicited 10%? Curiosity, and the belief it may just give us Pleasure and help avoid Pain. A Bit of History We have been involved in teaching Speed Reading to students and executives since 1959. When the Internet went commercial October 25 1994, we were the one-and-only listing under Speed Reading.
Why Doubling Your Long-Term Memory Leads to Longevity Did you know your brain is always using multi-senses, not just one, for comprehension? When we are listening to anyone speaking to usrn(giving a lecture, or movie dialogue), our brain is using a variety of senses, not just our ears, to make heads or tails of their ideas and contents. So what? In order to get our point across when we are communicating with one person or a group of folks – we must consciously use our face-teeth-lips and hand gestures, body-language, and even posture to emphasize our ideas.
“Seeing Aint Believing, & Talk Aint Cheap, Yes Really” • 1. Cliches are on auto-pilot in our brain, so there is NO left-brain analysis about what they really mean. • 2. Successful people do NOT wait until their GOALS materialize completely – before they add a Mustard-Seed of faith in beginning new behaviors. • 3. If we WAIT to see our goals in reality, before we believe in them, we are not motivated to learn new skills required to create our GOALS. Conclusion: “Believing-Is-Seeing!”
What Are Money-Players? Cliché: “the rich get richer, and the poor have babies.” In sports many of the same faces win the MVP awards, batting titles, and play in the All-Star game again-and-again. They bat .300 con-sistently, way more than the average big-league player, In Texas Hold’Em poker, the most popular game of poker in the world, the same “money-players” win the tou ament gold-bracelets rntime-and-time-again. If they don’t win first prize, they share the money by coming second or third. Second can pay one-million dollars.
Who Needs a Boot Camp (basic-training) For Learning & Critical Thinking? Neuroscientists estimate about 83% of students and 76% of executives are missing the link between knowing and doing. It is called the “critical-thinking” step. Use-it-or-lose-it. My Pop used to say, “Something for nothing? Nix it, kid.”
“Do you need More Energy About 3PM? Done.” • 1. Mike: “Pop, tell me something new, about acing school?” • 2. Me: “This is the best strategy, baby-easy 30-second exercise, in the past 10-years. It’s a Stress-Buster, and reboots your Life-Energy. • Takes half-a-minute & you can do it yourself without a Guru. Some students do it 3x a day, others only once when they require an ‘energy-boost’. • 3. Mike: “You tested this system at your workshops, and it didn’t kill anybody? Most of your best exercises are from Yoga, right?”r
What Is Your Competitive Advantage? Bank of America is repaying the U.S. Treasury its $45 billion TARP loan. What does TARP stand for? A recent survey found only 5% could define the Acronym (word from first letters of words) – Troubled Asset Relief Program. So what? Who cares? Is the ability to learn a power skill in our Knowledge Economy? Maybe more so than the 1920s when 50% of the U.S. economy was based on agriculture? B of A went to the equity market and raised $19.29 billion for this governmentrnpayoff, the rest they had in their piggy bank.
How to Raise Your Tolerance For Frustration The CEO walked into the meeting with the banknofficials requesting a line of credit of 2 billionndollars. He had the assets to justify the loan andnthe company had a past history of repaying all their loans. His application was rejected because the ...
Why Your Career is Emotionally More Than Earning a Living It was Thanksgiving Day, the clan gathered at my Mother-in-law’srnhome to eat and drink triple (3x) their normal calories, but all is forgiven because it is a sanctioned feast day. Why? It is a ritual for God, U.S. and the Family. I have not watched a football game from beginning to end since high school, and I did not miss it. Today I will suffer through four complete games, two-college and two professional. I really hate it.
Why Does Criticism Make You Successful? The #1 smartest thing Speed Reading teaches us is the power of Keep-It-Simple-Stupid. No insult intended – but we are all ignorant (dirt-stupid) about one-million vital causes-and-effects. We call it Knowledge-Challenged or Information-Overload. Did you know 92% of email readers (not just you and me) instantly delete the message when it becomes complex and incomprehensible for longer than 10rnseconds?
“Do You Know These Einstein Quotes?” • 1. “The only valuable thing is Intuition.” • 2. “A Little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. But, a Lot of knowledge is too.” • 3. “If you cannot explain your amazing idea, invention or theory to a smart ten-year old, you may NOT be on to something.” • 4. “It is better Cousin Harold, to be a man of Value (worth) than one of Success.” • 5. “I am often wrong. But I forgive myself and move on. I never worry about the future. It will take care of its self.”
How to Use Your Willpower to Implant Positive Emotions, And Blast-Out Negative Feelings. • 1. Are we consciously focused on our feelings, all-day? • 2. Answer: you and I change emotions during our waking hours more often than people change their underwear and take showers. • 3. Unless we use our willpower (dorso-lateral pre-frontal-cortex) our self-talk (internal-monollogue, “still-small-voice”, subvocalization), takes over with negative-emotions.
Would you want to live to advanced old-age if you knew you wouldnbe lucid and active? Researching young people from 18 to 28 concluded they believed old age produced lack of independence, physical immobility and loss of mental acuity. What can we do to produce healthy brain aging? Physical ...
True/False: “What your eyes see, your ‘heart’ is bound to believe.” • 1. “I don’t even know what that means. What’s-In-It-For-Me? to even think about it?” • 2. “If you take this knowledge to mind, you will be in the top 5% of students and executives. Example: if we see it on TV, hear it on the radio, view it Online, or learn it from a friend, we take that info as proven Science. • You know I’m right. It’s “proven”. But what if it’s based on a mistake or bad reporting?”
ANTs Verses APTs is a Head Thing Some people pick-up the strategies, techniques and tactics of Speed Reading in 20-minutes, others in 2-hours, some, in five-hours. Still others take up to “one-week” to feel comfortable with using Speed Reading 101.org We are all different based onrnthe ‘self-talk’ going on in our mind about “new-stuff”. Scientific Facts: a) we humans have an average of 60 thousand thoughts pass through our mind DAILY. One-per second. b) 95% of these thoughts are a repeat from yesterday, and the day-before. They’re an almost daily occurrence.
Why Guilt Feelings Are Required For Learning And Success a) “It’s not my fault, he started it.” b) “Don’t get mad at me, I couldn’t help myself.” c) “My genes made me do it.” Speed Reading is a requirement for success. Temptation We expect to see kids give into temptation and be impulsive. Sort of like obese people and the sight of chocolate.