How to read a book & remember it well

Okay. Uh, we're gonna talk about how to read a book. I'm going to go through how I read this book and like why do I put all these posters and these other things into it and I'm just going to show you, you know, like if people actually who know me, they the the things that stand

out when people actually know me, there are, you know, I'm pretty plain and simple. There's nothing fancy about me.

simple. There's nothing fancy about me.

If you're like at a bar, I would just be a guy in the corner. You wouldn't even notice me. But the people who actually

notice me. But the people who actually know me, what stands out is they usually kind of freak out about how simple I am.

Um, and then the next thing they freak about is how much knowledge I have. like

people who really deeply know me personally. Um, and they go together.

personally. Um, and they go together.

Simplicity provides time to do things like how I can read all these books and do all these other things. Um, and and like just to give you a little perspective, when I took my diagnostic

uh radiology written boards um on clinical information, it's like a four four and a half hour test. I was done an hour 10 minutes with perfect score. And

the question is, how does a person do that? Okay. And what I'm going to show

that? Okay. And what I'm going to show you is here's what happens when you read a lot. average person is so demoralized

a lot. average person is so demoralized from the first year of high school where they're forced to read, you know, Julius Caesar, Great Expectations by Dickens, Kill a Mockingbird, you know, try to

tell them they're racist and it's all specifically chosen by the school system to make kids hate reading. And so most children never read another book the rest of their life except what they're forced to in school. And they they go

through life being functional, illiterate, ahistorical. That's the

illiterate, ahistorical. That's the average American uh complete ignoramises. Okay. The next level is

ignoramises. Okay. The next level is people who, you know, want to get good grades for, you know, an professional career, go to grad school or something.

So, they they read whatever they have to for school and they pursue a little bit of advanced education, so they got a little more vocabulary skill and, you know, maybe they got a little higher IQ,

but they're they're not that educated.

They did what they had to do to get by.

Okay. Then the next level up in literacy vocabulary verbal sophistication is people who read for pleasure. They'll enjoy reading a nice

pleasure. They'll enjoy reading a nice novel. You know, whatever they read,

novel. You know, whatever they read, they enjoy. It's not a big deal. My

they enjoy. It's not a big deal. My

father was like this. He would read the well-known novels. He would read the

well-known novels. He would read the well-known authors, philosophers, and stuff, but it was just sort of after a long day's work, you know, my dad was a doctor, psychiatrist. He would get done

doctor, psychiatrist. He would get done with his day's work, take the dog for a walk, then he'd eat his dinner, he'd sit in bed, and he'd listen to classical music and read books. Okay? and he knew

the English authors and and sort of the famous men of the last couple thousand years. But what I'm getting at is he

years. But what I'm getting at is he wasn't reading for any specific purpose.

He was just reading because he found it enjoyable and relaxing. You know, he'd grown up as a poor guy in Ireland with a dirt floor and he was just happy to have a book in his hand. Okay? And and he was

a great role model for me. However, what

I'm trying to say is there's a higher level of reading and the higher level of reading is to read for a purpose. Um and

that'll be like what I'm trying to do. I

will read for months on end to figure out diabetes to figure out hypertension, to figure out what causes athoscerosis, to figure out what causes dementia. And

the relevance is when you are reading for a specific purpose to figure out a disease, you've got really good memory retention. Okay? All right. So, um, and

retention. Okay? All right. So, um, and it's nice to have a good vocabulary because people who don't have a good vocabulary, they can't really defend themselves. In this modern world,

themselves. In this modern world, unfortunately, we all get hassled a lot.

Most people do. And if you can verbally defend yourself or you can write well, you have more ability to prevent people from messing with you. And it's good to have that. Okay. Um, and it's good for

have that. Okay. Um, and it's good for other things as well. But anyways,

there's a lot of things that go into, you know, like telling jokes. Anybody

who can tell jokes is pretty smart because, you know, think about it. When

you learn another language, you don't learn jokes until you're real advanced.

That's an advanced thing in language.

Okay. So, let's go to the the next slide. I'm going to go through how I

slide. I'm going to go through how I systematically go through a book.

Okay. So basically, you know, first of all, you want to choose the book carefully. Most books

carefully. Most books um are not that good. You look at the testimonials. For example, if the if the

testimonials. For example, if the if the if it's a nutrition book and the testimonials are the paleo, keto, carnivore, you know, nonsense factory type stuff, you know, the book's going to stink because it's going to be promoting that type of diet, which is,

you know, based on nonsense. All right,

look at their credentials. If they

really push conventional credentials, conventional everything, they're probably the book's going to stink. It's

just going to be a drug dealing manual.

That's where it's coming from.

Conventional medicine is totally narrow-minded and stupid. It almost

never cures a disease or does anything new or interesting. Okay. Um if the patient helped themsself, a family member, a friend, that's a good sign.

Doesn't mean the book is good, but at least it's more likely to be good. Um,

if there's good information immediately, like on the first page, there should be something good because some of the most common things you run into is that the book could really be a five-page article

and they fluff it out and 250 pages to make it into a book. That's a very common trick. So, if you don't see a lot

common trick. So, if you don't see a lot of information density, idea density on the first page, you should don't buy the book, you know. And if you, you know, if you buy a book from Amazon, they're pretty good about showing you the first

couple pages. It's really nice to see

couple pages. It's really nice to see the index. I like to see the index

the index. I like to see the index because like I said, I recently have these two books from the Ivy League supposedly about Alzheimer's, MS, and this complex neurogenerative disease. I

just wanted to see if these guys, you know, the big names had any anything to show. Both books totally sucked. None of

show. Both books totally sucked. None of

them, they don't even mention exytoxicity in their index. I bought

them off Amazon, so I couldn't u I couldn't see the index when I bought the book, but um you know, the book to me is just like a comic book if it doesn't go through extoxicity and stuff. It's baby

talk nonsense and and that's why you know one of the lines in this last Ivy League uh book I read it's I I started reading I read about the first 40 50 pages he says um hundreds of Alzheimer

scientists were gathered together in this auditorium in some national meeting conference and what I'm saying is there's hundreds of them and despite the fact being hundreds of them none of them has any more imagination you know than a

high school dropout I'm sorry they just sit there and go how come we can't make beta amalloid work how come we can't make inflammation work because it's wrong, okay? And it's been wrong for 40,

wrong, okay? And it's been wrong for 40, 50 years. So, they're stupid. Okay? I'm

50 years. So, they're stupid. Okay? I'm

I'm telling you, it doesn't mean a doctor's smart because they go to an Ivy League school, okay? And being smart is not the same as as having a good memory to pass a test. Okay? Creative thinking

and memorizing something for a test are not the same thing. Okay? Um, you know, they'll they'll go together sometimes, but they're not the same thing at all.

Okay? So, uh, sometimes they're just trying to recruit you for some course you must pay for or to come to their clinic or something. So again, if you see that there there's not a lot of information density, then forget it. All

right. So now, what do I actually really do? I'll take a look at the book, you

do? I'll take a look at the book, you know, look at the table of contents, get the gist of it, and I may look at the pictures a little bit, but then I start reading. And notice I write all over my

reading. And notice I write all over my books. I write on them like crazy. Uh,

books. I write on them like crazy. Uh,

what I'm trying to do is the first time I go through the book, I'm just scanning the book for information. Is there

anything useful here that I want to memorize? cuz that's my expectation when

memorize? cuz that's my expectation when I read a book that I'm basically going to suck the useful knowledge out of it like a vacuum and then keep that knowledge. Okay. So, I I'll circle a

knowledge. Okay. So, I I'll circle a word. I'll make a little asterisk or

word. I'll make a little asterisk or I'll draw a line from the money word. Uh

same things here. I don't know if you can see that. I can I can put it up here. Uh well, here. No, that's the

here. Uh well, here. No, that's the page. I got the line these lines coming

page. I got the line these lines coming up. That means I'm going to go back to

up. That means I'm going to go back to that and I'll go back to the book later to put it into a word file. For example,

this is a book about hypertension, high blood pressure solution by Richard Moore, MD/PhD. It's one of the best

Moore, MD/PhD. It's one of the best healthc care books ever written. So, I

will take this information and I have a I'll have a file on my computer on hypertension and I'll just and I'll and I'll keep the page numbers corresponding to it. Plus, I also while I'm reading

to it. Plus, I also while I'm reading the book, I'll just read these in the bathroom usually is I I'll write in the back of the book and I'll often crossindex the book, you know, the page number to where I saw something good. So

then the first time through the book is just to quickly see is there anything useful. I'm searching like a scout. Is

useful. I'm searching like a scout. Is

there useful information? Is there

useful information? Then the second time I go through I'm doing it to transfer it to my word file or I'll just make a video about it, a book review or something. And um that way I'll have the

something. And um that way I'll have the information available to me because the value of the book, you know, yeah, sure it's nice to enjoy the book, but the the main value of the book to me when I'm reading a medical book for the purpose

of mastering a subject is that I I retain the information. Okay? So, it's

not so much it's what you retain long term that matters. Um, a lot of times I'll just doggeear the page, you know, I'll fold it back. I'll fold the page back like that. Then when I go back over it, I'll only go back to the pages. I

fold it over. If I think there's something really good, I'll put a post-it note on there, you know. So,

here's something. I thought this page was really good. I put post-it notes on both of those pages. Sometimes I go over it again, you know, six months or a year later because I I revisit the topic and I'll highlight it or I'll use a

different color pen, but I'm very actively engaged with it, you know, and I' I've gotten teased about this. I've

been like this ever since I was in college, and I'll get teased about it by people, but I'll know the book backwards and forward. I'll be able to quote back

and forward. I'll be able to quote back the the key points in a book, and that's how I do it. Um, and the other thing, I'm real simple. And the reason I say simple, what I'm saying is I don't waste

any time with BS. I don't drink any alcohol. I don't do anything that I

alcohol. I don't do anything that I think is stupid or a waste of time. Like

watching TV is a stupid waste of time. I

don't do any of that because that's how I was able to do so many things because people ask me, "Oh, you know, my kids are having trouble in school and they they want to do better in school." I'm

like, "Well, you can't watch TV. You

can't waste time with all these things."

And they're like, they kind of freak out by that. But I'm like, that's what it

by that. But I'm like, that's what it takes. I also tell them, you show up

takes. I also tell them, you show up that first day of class, you want to know more than anyone else in the room because you studied the topic in advance. All these little things add up

advance. All these little things add up to mastering a subject. Uh, let's see.

Summarize key points in the back cover.

I put a page number index to it so I can find it again quickly. Make a video. Uh,

put the book somewhere you can find it later. Yeah, I got thousands of books.

later. Yeah, I got thousands of books.

So, I try to have at least some filing system. The stuff that's really good, I

system. The stuff that's really good, I keep them near me, near my person so I can uh, get back to them easily. If the

book's a piece of crap, I just throw them into a big pile. I don't care if I ever see the book again. I I can tell pretty quick if I'm ever going to want to look at the book again. Um, for

really long books, like if I'm reading these novels for pleasure, I will just uh listen to them in the car on audio CD. I'll buy the paper version a lot of

CD. I'll buy the paper version a lot of times and I'll look up specific parts in it, but I won't read the entire paper version. They're just too long because

version. They're just too long because back in the 1800s, there was nothing else to do. No TV, no radio, nothing.

So, the authors had a lot of purple pros went on too long. But anyways, that's the key point that number one, you're going through the book to find information. Number two, you come back

information. Number two, you come back to it in a way to save the good stuff and put it into a word file or make a video about it. And then you've taken all the useful information from the book for the most part. You know, later on you might be more sophisticated on that

subject and want to go back to it, revisit it in more detail because you can better understand the nuance of it.

But you get the gist of it. That's how

you suck the information out of a book.