Photoreading Course Review - Disc One

by | Sep 1, 2007 | Personal Development, PhotoReading | 8 comments

My PhotoReading review begins.  Just to recap:  on Thursday Steve Pavlina renewed the discount offer for the PhotoReading course, which became my kick-in-the-ass to actually USE the course (which I had purchased months ago).  So yesterday evening I sat down with the first PhotoReading CD.  Disc One is primarily an introduction to the PhotoReading course, and if the introduction is any indication about what the course is going to be like I'm very excited to see what's coming.  Considering that PhotoReading is teaching a "completely new way to read", I would say that it's very important for the introduction disc to do what it seems to have done: given me information about the course, some autobiographical information about Paul Scheele (the creator of the course) - particularly how he came up with the course and how PhotoReading has helped him in his own life, and it also created some positive expectations about how PhotoReading will help me in my life.  Just like how a good speaker will spend time at the beginning of their presentation telling you what they're going to be telling you, this first Disc has done a good job of preparing me for what's to come, and raised my level of eagerness to continue.

For the second part of PhotoReading Disc One, I was given a crash course in PhotoReading itself, with the opportunity to Photoread part of the dictionary.  Paul Scheele rightfully recognizes that doing this presents a bit of a risk to the student - what if you don't do so well?  He doesn't want you to be discouraged in that case - so before moving on to this part of the CD he states very clearly that if you're worried about "failing" for this exercise you should just skip it and move on to the next disc, where the course instruction "officially" begins. 

I decided to do the exercise even though (in my inner dialogue) I was worried about "failing" - just to see what would happen.  I understand that, for myself, initial failures are often just a part of the learning process - it's just a matter of jumping into a new environment and doing your best while you wait for your innate intelligence to kick in.  I'm not going to tell you exactly what the experiment was (because I think it's important for you to experience it for yourself - with fresh eyes) - but I can tell you that while my experience wasn't a raging success, it did show me that there was potential there within me, waiting to be tapped.  It's the experience of that potential, and a certain degree of trust that I have in the course, that's fostering my enthusiasm to continue.

Along with giving you a jump-start on PhotoReading, the experiment on Disc One also gives you a taste of the Accelerated Learning State - essentially a state of relaxation that is a prerequisite for Accelerated Learning to take place.  I was at the tail-end of the 7-minute relaxation exercise, just about to PhotoRead for the first time, when all of a sudden there was a knock at the office door - my wife, not knowing that she was interrupting something, had a dinner-related question for me.  Not a huge problem - I just went through the relaxation sequence for a second time - perhaps I was twice as relaxed!?  My advice to you, though:  do your best to let the people around you know what you're doing, and get permission from your family members to be alone for the required amount of time.  With everyone's buy-in, you'll be that much more assured of being able to focus on the course material and succeed.

Paul Scheele repeats the following oft-stated morsel of wisdom:  if you want different results, you have to start doing something different.  I have boxes and boxes and shelves and shelves of books - some of which I've read, most of which I haven't - all of which I'm interested in.  Clearly my current methodology for getting through quantities of the written word isn't serving me very well - So it's in the spirit of "changing my method to change my results" that I'm jumping in to the PhotoReading course, immersing myself fully and hoping for the best.  If an 8 hour course can completely change my life (and finally getting all the information that I want from these books, as well as having the time to enjoy novels, as well as having time to do OTHER things with my life would be a complete change for me), then call me completely committed to seeing what's going to happen!

There are 8 CDs in total, each one with a little over an hour of course material.  I will be doing my best to go through one CD per day (just the limits of my schedule, otherwise I'd do more).  If there are specific questions that you have after reading my review(s), please feel free to ask, and I'll be happy to respond.  Thanks for stopping by!

This is part one of my Photoreading review.

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