Why aren’t more people successful? The surprising answer is that “a big part of you wants just to be average,” says Roger Seip in the opening lines of his new book. Starting early in life, most of us want to be like everyone else. We want to fit in. In other words, we long to be average.
According to Seip, being average in America today translates into the following: You are part of the 68 percent of Americans 20 and over who are overweight, or the 34 percent who are clinically obese. Like 50 percent of American marriages, yours will end in divorce. You are among the more than 75 percent of workers who actively dislike their jobs. Financially, as an average American, your income is around $40,000 — less than it was for the average American in the 1940s, when adjusted for inflation. As for retirement, at current savings levels, you as an average American should be able to retire around age 96.
Fitting in suddenly doesn’t look so good, does it?
There is an alternative, Seip suggests. Train Your Brain for Success: Read Smarter, Remember More, and Break Your Own Records can be your starting line in your race for success.
Seip is an engaging and adept coach. “The great thing about success,” Seip writes, “is that it’s simple.”
Simple does not necessarily mean easy, he adds. By learning the fundamentals of success and applying them as habits, you can break free of average and achieve the things you want.
Success, Seip argues, leaves clues. There is almost always someone, somewhere, who has accomplished the same or similar goals that you have. They did so as a function of how they thought and what they did. Developing similar thought patterns and making those into habits ensures that you see similar success.
Seip couples this factor with a second one: visualizing an outcome before you attempt it helps to make it happen. Athletes often use this type of visualization before a performance.
Conditioning your mind to see pictures of success will help it to happen. The brain’s reticular activating system (RAS) allows you to focus while filtering out what you don’t want.
“Your brain is either working for you or against you, but it’s always working,” Seip argues. Knowing how to make even small changes in your thinking can make a huge difference.
This is, however, less a book about brain function and more about the techniques that can create success. The author explores the ability to increase memory, create filing systems in the brain and recall information by using a variety of tools and exercises. The goal is always to provide structures for personal growth and success.
He lays the foundation for this with memory. Almost every professional will cite improved memory as a desire — to recall names, give presentations and even remember appointments. Organizing information is key to success in these areas, because the brain is designed to operate with a system in place.
Such a system is called the Mental File Folder System, or F.I.G. The latter is an acronym for File Image Glue. File is a place where information is stored. Image is how the brain visualizes. Glue is a device that allows the file to stick — usually action and emotion attached to a particular image.
Among the examples is one for going grocery shopping without a list, using your body as a kind of information filing system. If you need oil, think of slippery oil all over the bottoms of your feet. With avocados on the list, move up to your shins and see green mush all over them. Need walnuts? Visualize cracking them between your knees. Soon, you will have the list vividly associated with action and emotion in a way that helps you to remember.
The chapter on “Why You Read Like a Sixth-Grader and What to Do About It” is an eye-opening account. As a businessperson today, your ability to read quickly and comprehensively has never been more important. Nearly 99 percent of us, Seip says, read the same way we did in sixth grade. His smart reading tools for greater comprehension and retention are highly recommended for anyone wanting to build success.
After Seip has coached the reader through the warm-up calisthenics for the brain, he challenges you to get into the game. To do so, a website accompanies the text, acting as a visual workbook while providing support materials.
Train Your Brain For Success is an insightful, well-designed resource for anyone struggling to create life and work that matters. Practical and motivating, it provides avenues for success for anyone who wants more out of life and is willing to train their brain to get it.