Famous speed readers
Speed reading is a critical skill for top class leaders no difference if it is business or politics. Leaders have always little time to process lots of reading material in order to gain information. Can you imagine how big piles of paper have ministers or presidents waiting for them to look through? And how little time they have for that. Or think about a CEO reading annual reports of potential business partners or looking through production reports. There is no possibility of slow reading.
In fact, many famous leaders have been natural speed readers. Surely they have benefited from that ability in their careers. For example, Napoleon Bonaparte was known for his fast natural reading speed. Theodore Roosevelt was also a very fast reader. Besides reading the texts fast he was able select the parts of the texts which he could skim and scan, while still absorbing the thrust of his reading material. He said:
“The wise thing to do is simply to skip the bosh and twaddle and vulgarity and untruth, and get the benefit out of the rest.”
Several famous leaders have trained their speed reading skills. For example, several former US presidents such as John. F .Kennedy and Jimmy Carter have taken speed reading courses. Kennedy was a strong supporter of speed reading and he encouraged the staff members of the White House to participate in speed reading trainings. His reading skills allowed Kennedy to work through loads of materials instead of reading only the summaries. His reading speed is said to be as high as 1200 words per minute, which is 7 times faster than the average person.
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My name is Kristjan-Olari Leping. I am a speed reading trainer. I have an associated professor position at the University of Tartu, am a policy analyst in a policy research center, I am a trainer and I am involved in many other business projects. 