Ted.com

I visited Battle Creek, Michigan the other day and an old friend and his wife approached me and said, “You might not remember me Art, but I will never forget you because you changed my life many, many years ago. I was trying to get started in the real estate business and I knew nothing about real estate. You gave me some audio tapes and showed me how I could turn my car into a traveling classroom. I listened to those tapes again and again and in the first year I sold a million dollars worth of real estate. I bought new tapes and listened to them and I did what they told me to and the second year I sold two million dollars worth.”

He is one of the most successful men in town. It was around 1975 when I gave him those tapes.

When I first began speaking I discovered the process of spaced repetition for learning. I put tape players in my car, in my life. I carried tapes around with me and whenever I had a few free moments I listened to motivational and educational cassette tapes. I would select tapes that I felt were most helpful and listen to them about five times. In this way I could absorb a concept to its fullest. I’d listen to the way the speaker spoke. Check out the vocal varieties, manners of repetition, different speeds in which the message was delivered. I would experiment with talking in the manner of the speaker. After five times I understood a great deal more than from a single exposure. It sort of amazes me how our universities do not provide recordings of their great professors doing their most important messages. Spaced repetition could double or triple what a student might absorb. I’d like to invite you to a magic place, perhaps you have already visited it or maybe you have the Ted.com habit already. It is a web site you can visit that provides the opportunity to listen to a twenty minute presentation by some of the best speakers and the best teachers in the whole world. This is how I got my education by listening to the very best on audio tape. I turned my car into a traveling classroom and it changed my life. I was invited to speak throughout the U.S. and Canada. I began writing books triggered in my imagination by the marvelous ideas I listened to. My mind was opened and it keeps producing new ideas even though on July 5th I will be 87 years old. Please, check out Ted.com for me and then check it again for yourself. Get in the habit of daily personal growth.

Open your mind up to the awesome wisdom that is all around you free for the taking. Don’t let your cell phone or your computer dim your wit and your mind. Use them to learn, to improve your mind, to tune in on life.