Section 1: Setting Yourself Up for Success

Most of the time, the introductory sessions are just fluff, with the usual mindset lectures we've heard over and over.

Luckily this is not the case in the SuperLearner masterclass:

After a brief introduction and explanation on how to use the many resource materials at your disposal, you will be introduced to the concept of Progressive Overload.

Progressive Overload is a principle that is at the core of any strength and fitness training, and Jonathan says that it can also be applied to learning.

How exactly does it work though?

The basic idea, even when training your mind, is to push your abilities near or just before your limits or capacities.

Similarly to physical training, you want to be constantly challenged by the mental weights you'll be lifting, but not lifting weights that are too heavy and could cause sudden overload!

The trick is to slowly keep increasing the level of resistance over time, as can be seen in the graph above:

In this way, your mind will always be challenged, but you will also slowly be capable of progressive better feats of memory, speed reading, and anything you apply yourself to.

There are different basic concepts behind the idea of progressive overload...

These are:

• Periodization, or rest period.
  
• Variations of intensity.
  
• Volume of training.
  

It will be up to you to see where your comfort zone is, and push beyond it keeping in mind that you won't want to push beyond your capabilities.

It's a fine balancing act.

You will need to work hard, without the frustration of not achieving results, hence the progressive in progressive overload.

In order to avoid fatigue and frustration, Jonathan suggests you use the Pomodoro technique, which consists in working for 20/25 minutes and resting for 5.

After four rounds of doing this, rest for 30 minutes.

This has been proven to be one of the best techniques for learning faster.

This section is also packed with interviews with other famous life-hackers like Tim Ferriss, author of The 4 Hour Work Week, and many others.

Section 2: Understand Your Memory

In order to prepare for speed reading, one of the core aspects of the whole mastermind is that of improving memory too.

Why is that? I hear you ask.

Jonathan makes the example that the way our brain stores memories can be likened to a bucket with a funnel above it and a garden hose pouring water in the bucket through the funnel.

The water is facts that you wish to memorize, the funnel represents your working and short term memory, and the bucket is your long term memory:

As long as the water entering the funnel is from a simple garden hose, there's no problem whatsoever.

What happens if you substitute that hose with a fire hydrant though?

This is what happens when you learn how to speed read and the concepts flooding your funnel are much more abundant in number.

It is important to upgrade the bucket and funnel first, and only later improve the hose, or more simply, upgrade your working and short term memory first, and then the quantity of data input!

The working memory is the shortest amount of memory needed to remember what was said at the beginning of the sentence once the sentence is over, so you make sense of it.

The short term memory is longer, but not that much longer: about 15/20 seconds.

That's why these need to be improved before you flood them with inputs.

This issue is behind the fact that many people consider speed reading a myth:

They learn how to speed read, but their working and short term memory can't cope.

Learning to speed read is quite an easy task, according to Jonathan, but storing memory at that speed is a totally different challenge.

Jonathan suggests that academic institutions, starting from schools and universities, do not teach principles of memory retention.

Because of this we are often, as kids, forced to learn things off by heart, with no simpler methodology.

This is why, in this mastermind, Jonathan proposes to tech us techniques of memory retention that will allow us to remember facts, to remember names of people just met etc.

The skills you will learn will not just be abstract principles, but practical hacks that you will be able to learn during your daily life.

That's what I found really engaging about this course:

None of it teaches you things for the sake of it, but because they are all applicable in your day-to-day life.

Section 3: The Incredible Power of Visual Memory

As human beings, we have been hardwired over millions of years, to make use of visual memory as a main source for knowledge.

After all, our ancestors had to remember which berry was poisonous and which herb could heal a wound.

This has developed our visual ability incredibly, so much so we can apply these techniques to speed reading too.

Pictures contain rich and detailed information and there is so much we can learn from just seeing a picture for a few seconds than reading any amount of material.

After all, the saying goes that 'a picture is worth a thousand words'.

Therefore when speed reading, it is imperative that we turn the concepts we read about into visual markers as soon as we can.

According to Jonathan, 'the best and most memorable types of visual markers are strange, bizarre or emotionally connected to visual memory.

After all, as adult learners, we really need to connect our markers to things happened in the past, and the stronger the memory of the past, the stronger the visual marker.

Sometimes, for abstract concepts, you will have to make use of creative imagination.

If you want to create a visual marker for, let's say, neo-colonialism, it is going to take much more than what it takes to visualize a coffee cup.

The trick is to slowly shift your thinking from purely analytical to a more creative one.

Creative imagination is a faculty that we used loads when we were kids, so it shouldn't take long to get it back!

There is one exercise that Jonathan suggests we use that has been used by creativity experts throughout the world with very encouraging results.

It is called the Multiple Uses Test, and here is the gist of how it works.

Grab the closest object to you and write down as many uses you can think of for that object:

On average you'll be able to think of about 20 different uses, some of them often overlapping.

On the other hand, children usually can think of 40 different uses, by use of imagination:

They will imagine a pen as a mini pole vault that a mouse can use, or they'll look at a stick of gum as a surfboard that their Lego men can use to surf Lego waves..

With very little practice, though, you can kickstart your creativity and start thinking like you did as a kid too, and this will be invaluable to learn how to think in images.

Section 4: Mental Markers

So how do we actually apply images to memory?

It is probably useful to know that we possess 3 different kinds of memory intended for:

• Encoding
  
• Storage
  
• Retrieval
  

Where most people fail is, they try to use all 3 types of memories at once, a sure recipe for failure!

The solution is what Jonathan calls batching, whereby you do multiple instances of the same process with multiple notions that you want to process.

So, for example, if you want to be successful, you will only work towards storing memories, or retrieving memories, but never at the same time.

What normal people who read do is that they read a sentence, encode it, store it, and possibly retrieve it to give the next sentence meaning, wasting a huge amount of energy.

And that's where micro-pausing comes in.

Your brain needs to repeat and review concepts it receives in order to process them, and that's where micro-pausing comes in our aid.

You need to prove to your brain, by pausing on the concept, that that is a concept worth storing in memory, or else there is no chance you will remember it.

That's also where visual markers finally come into play.

Markers are what allow us to dual code and store information into our long term memory, so instead of thinking about all the amount you have read, there is another option.

Think about how your visual markers interconnect logically and you'll be able to retain huge quantities of information.

By playing the visual markers as a film in our mind, we can make sense of the whole text and retrieve particular information that we need at any given moment.

The goal is to finally learn to sight read, to grab chunks of written information and be able to recall them with ease.

So what makes a visual marker a good marker to use?

According to Jonathan:

• Good markers represent a specific and easy concept you can retrieve from memory.
  
• Good markers are imbued with rich details.
  
• Good markers can be easily connected to other markers that come with it.
  
• Good markers can be easily converted into an image.
  
• Good markers priorities the solution in the text, and not the problem.
  
• Good markers connect to existing information whenever possible.
  

The trick is remembering details and not generic concepts, so they'll be easier to remember!

Section 5: Creating Long Term Memory

In order to get these markers and ideas to stick in the long term memory, there are many ways you can operate.

One simple way is highlighting the text or taking notes:

Taking notes has been proven to reinforce the link between the concept and long term memory, and the reason for taking notes or highlighting can be many.

You can take notes:

• To review the content.
  
• To focus attention on the details you note down.
  
• You can use note taking apps like Evermore.
  
• You can create action items like to-do lists, topics to research..
  
• To create a strategy: what to learn next, what to write about.
  

With this method, you can go back and review your notes quickly in the future to keep them fresh in your head.

Another fundamental system to create long term memory links is mind-mapping.

The mind map is a diagram that is used to visually arrange details:

A mind map is relational and displays associations between parts of the whole.

It is mostly generated from a single theme, drawn as an image in the middle of a blank page.

To this theme, you'll attach corresponding representations of concepts such as pictures, words and parts of words.

Even though at first mind maps are going to be harder to create than normal notes, they are much better at creating long term memory for a whole variety of reasons.

Firstly, they are visual, and are much easier to remember, if we attach visual markers to them.

Second, they actually show the interrelation between a central idea and other subordinate ideas visually, making things easier to digest.

Finally, they are really fast and easy to review, compared to note taking or other techniques.

Section 6: Pre-Reading and Preparation

Preparation before reading is essential.

You don't want to interrupt your flow once you get reading, because you need to look up a concept or you've forgotten your highlighter somewhere.

This is a life hack that can be used in pretty much everything you do:

If you prepare all you will be needing before you begin your main activity, you will not have to interrupt your creative juices once you're in the zone.

It's like that famous Abe Lincoln quote:

This is where Jonathan's SQ3R System comes in handy.

This is by far the most interesting takeaway of the section.

SQ3R stands for:

• Survey
  
• Question
  
• Read
  
• Recall
  
• Review
  

During the Survey step, you skim the text or pre-read it quickly to prepare your mind for the kind of information it will be dealing with.

In the Question step, you ask yourself specific questions on the text to improve your motivation:

Why do you want to read this text? How will it help you? What do you need to remember?

The Read step is probably self explanatory:

You read, either speed reading or normally reading, creating markers and maximizing the benefits of the previous steps.

The Recall step is those short pauses you will take to make sure that you have a high retention, and you've taken everything in.

According to Jonathan, the Review step is the most important:

It's when you connect the markers you created and embed them in your memory, trying to create connections with other memories.

The more time you spend on this step, the more you will remember of the piece you just speed-read through.

Section 7: Read With Your Eyes

When reading normally, we all usually read with our inner voice, internalizing concepts as if we were reading out loud.

That's where speed reading differs radically..

With speed-reading, you will have to learn to read with your eyes, and not your internal voice.

The trick is to divide every page that you are reading into 2 or 3 columns, visually.

We then will have to train our eyes to jump from one column to the other while reading.

Why is that?

Most people ignore the fact that our eyes are incapable of making smooth, gradual movements, panning from the left side of the page to the right seamlessly.

What our eyes really do when reading is jumping from one word to the next.

These micro-jumps are called saccades.

And the point between two saccades, where your eye is actually still and focusing on a word or a detail, is called fixation.

So a normal reader will make from 10 to 20 saccades per line, when reading.

A speed-reader, on the other hand, divides the page he is reading into 2 or 3 columns, so his saccades will be 2 or 3, and our brain's downtime between saccades will reduce drastically.

The creation of larger fixations and the reduction of the number of saccades is the secret behind speed-reading, pretty much.

It's basically what is taught in most speed-reading seminars, the famous technique technique Tim Ferriss uses, and what you will learn to do, no matter what course you sign up for.

What is missing from all the other methods, according to Jonathan, is what happens next:

The retention.

Sure, you can learn to read really fast and finish an article in a matter of seconds, but if your retention skills are not developed, then it's for nothing.

You won't be able to remember much of what you just speed-read.

Section 8: Let's Speed Things Up

Many other courses encourage you to start by reading at the fastest pace you can currently and then improve on that.

According to Jonathan, if you rely on your old habits, you won't be able to improve that much.

Remember progressive overload?

Yup, that's the way it should be done right from the beginning.

The idea is to push yourself out of the comfort zone and let your comprehension catch up with you on the other side.

Jonathan brings up a really good analogy with weight-lifting:

You want to lift weights that will really test your strength and that initially you won't be able to lift enough times to complete a rep.

In the same way, the first times you push your speed reading, you're not going to make much out of it, but by sheer repetition, your brain and comprehension are going to catch up.

Then, of course, it's going to be time for heavier weights and faster reading speed!

This is the reason why Jonathan is against speed-reading software that moves the text for you.

It's important to set your own pace and adjust it time after time, the better you get.

Reading an article or a book without a speed-reading app will also make it easier for you to pause, make markers, and review the text while you're reading.

According to Jonathan, you should reach a retention rate of 70% before you start using progressive overload again.

You don't want to remember every single detail of the article, but 70% is a great percentage to take in and store in long term memory.

This is not a simple process:

You are retraining your eye and your memory to acquire data in a whole new way.

Expect to be at it at least for many weeks or a couple of months of daily exercise.

Section 9: Good Learning Habits

Since you are going to be at this for a long time, you might as well develop some good learning habits too, while you're at it!

Most of the time, due to what is called cognitive reframing, we think we have learned something and know aspects of it really well, when we really don't.

That's especially tricky wen we're trying to learn something as complex as speed-reading.

There is a difference between recognizing a fact and recalling a fact, and it's a big one.

How can we know if our knowledge is just rote memory or full comprehension?

It is important, from time to time, to stop and test what you've learned.

Is it only superficial understanding or have you understood the complexities of what you read and learned?

One thing Jonathan pushes his students to do is to creatively test themselves, by writing a piece on the knowledge just acquired, composing a song if it's music you're learning or writing in a foreign language you've been speed-learning.

You do not have to be a pro to begin testing yourself:

You should be following a test-learn-test loop to make yourself better and better.

This will dramatically increase your progress, and will keep you motivated since you will register improvements more often.