Episode #24: Speed Reading 2,400 Words Per Minute, Business Lessons from Karaoke, and Meditation in Motion with May Ling Lai

Episode Summary

May Ling Lai shares her personal story of growing up on the Florida Gulf Coast where she became a musical performer on local stages starting at age 5 because her mother wanted to prevent any tendencies towards shyness. She talks about her ongoing passion for music and the business lessons all people can take from karaoke. May Ling even performs an acapella song on the Maverick Show! She then talks about running her first marathon at age 35, and subsequently completing 3 full marathons and 20 half marathons in a dozen countries. She explains the concept of “meditation in motion” and how distance running enabled her to meditate at a much higher level, both while running and stationary. She talks about some of her most recent trips to Budapest, Rome and Kuala Lumpur, including a story about why you should always talk to your taxi driver. She then goes on to discuss her latest course “The 7 Skills of Speedreading” and explains how she can read at about 10x the average person’s speed. She talks about how she became a speed-reader out of necessity when she was managing a billion dollar “short portfolio” for a hedge fund when the economy started to collapse. She dismantles the misnomer about speed-reading being a “hack” and talks through the actual mechanics of how people can learn to speed-read without comprehension loss.

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About the Guest

May Ling Lai

May Ling Lai is an innovation specialist, investor, consultant, and business founder. She worked in equity research sales, put investors together and prepared companies for 200 IPOs. At age 24, she built a nutraceuticals business that in 2 years generated annual revenues over $2mm. She then sold that and was hired by an $8 Billion hedge fund where she managed over 1 Billion in Equity Short Strategies. She then co-founded an Asset Management & Analytics Consulting business, acting as head of innovation, in which her work with C-level Executives in the asset management space impacted over $1.2 trillion worth of assets. May Ling reads 10x faster than the average college educated adult and is the co-author of a course called “The 7 Skills of Speed Reading”. She has run 3 full marathons and 20 half marathons in a dozen countries, she is proficient in 5 languages has travelled to over 50 countries.

What You'll Learn

The numerous business skills and lessons that can be gleaned from Karaoke
What the 7 skills of speed reading actually are and why both schools and the majority of speedreading courses do not teach them properly.
How distance running can help you achieve a meditative state which can also then help you improve your stationary meditation.

Links From the Episode

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MAY LING’S COURSE

The 7 Skills of Speedreading

PEOPLE AND MUSICIANS MENTIONED

OTHER MAVERICK SHOW INTERVIEW MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

01: May Ling Lai

LOCATION WHERE THE EPISODE WAS RECORDED

New York City

MAY LING’S TOP BUCKET LIST TRAVEL DESTINATION

Lebanon

OTHER DESTINATIONS MENTIONED

Check Flight Prices to Any of These Destinations

FOLLOW MAY LING

Time Stamped Show Notes

[04:47] MAY LING’S UPBRINGING AND HER HISTORY PERFORMING MUSIC

May Ling’s upbringing in Central Florida
Why her mother encouraged her to perform on stage starting at age 5

[12:12] BUSINESS LESSONS FROM KARAOKE

Ability to practice being in front of an audience and controlling the crowd
Watching how the audience responds to other peoples’ performances
Opportunity to practice empathy and support people who are bombing on stage
Practicing the skill of not being negative when other people perform poorly
Cultural observations when doing Karaoke in different countries
Understanding the audience, playing to them, and adjusting on the fly
Practicing stage presence and not allowing nervousness to show
How May Ling selects her karaoke songs to perform for different audiences

[20:25] MAY LING SINGS “THINK” BY ARETHA FRANKLIN, A CAPELLA

[21:21] MAY LING’S LESSONS FROM HER MOTHER

Being able to make people laugh
Go easy on yourself when speaking a foreign language

[23:43] MARATHON RUNNING AND “MEDITATION IN MOTION”

Running for stress reduction
Completing her first marathon at age 35
How to achieve a meditative state while running distance
Transitioning from meditation in motion to a stationary meditative practice
Running 3 marathons and 20 half-marathons in a dozen countries

[26:38] RECENT TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

Why the Vatican felt ‘holy’ but not ‘spiritual’ to her
Her observations about the art in Rome
Why you should always talk to your taxi or Uber driver
May Ling’s conversation with a taxi driver that had been captured by Somali pirates
Her conversations with Uber drivers who are successful business owners

[36:58] MAY LING’S MOTIVE FOR CREATING A SPEED READING COURSE

Why most schools don’t properly teach the skills required for speed reading
The benefits and application of speed-reading skills
Real life use cases of speed-reading
Why real speed reading skills are not ‘hacks’ or shortcuts or skimming
Why there should be no tradeoff between comprehension and speed
Why some speedreading courses are often filled with chicanery and misnomers

[52:28] EXPLAINING THE 7 SPEEDREADING SKILLS

The Essentials: Decoding, Vocabulary and Structure
The Mechanics: Focus, Perceptual Span, Sub-vocalization, Advanced pattern recognition
Why May Ling started speedreading when she was managing $1.2 Billion dollar portfolio
The length and video module structure of May Ling’s course
The potential for people to increase reading speed with May Ling’s course

[1:01:24] MAY LING’S CURRENT BUSINESS PROJECTS AND CONSULTING EXPERIENCES

Reflections on the “Entrepreneur Hot Seat” that Matt and May Ling co-facilitated on The Nomad Cruise
How May Ling evaluates a business consulting project
How May Ling assess the value she brings to a business
The consulting role she usually plays when companies hire her
Her latest consulting project she is passionate about

[1:08:20] THE LIGHTNING ROUND