Anthony Metivier's Blog, page 32

How To Remember More Of Your Vacations With A Memory Palace

[image error]Travel is awesome, right?

You bet it is.

The only problem is that most people don’t maximize the value of their vacations. Instead of going in prepared to remember as much as humanly possible, they accept what they can get from the default settings of the muscle sitting between their ears.

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way for you. Here’s how to travel differently so that you remember more, enjoy more and get to take your vacations again and again with the vibrant recall of an intense dream.

 

Infinitely Increase The Value Of Every Hotel Room With A Simple Memory Palace

 

One of the first things to do is draw out a quick sketch of your hotel room. It’s simple to chart a well-formed Memory Palace journey using such a small space.

Even if the Memory Palace only has four or five stations, you’re already ahead of the game because your mind is in memory mode. Here’s an example of a quick hotel Memory Palace in room April and I shared on our honeymoon. We were taking the ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm:

As seen in the video, you can also create a Memory Palace of the lobby, the hotel restaurant, gift shop and any other rooms you spot that look manageable. If you’re comfortable using outdoor Memory Palaces, parking lots and the hotel entrance can be powerful resources.

Of course, to draw Memory Palaces, you’ll need a Memory Journal.

 

How To Keep A Memory Journal

 

Memory Journals are great for a number of purposes:

Drawing Memory Palaces
Describing mnemonic images
Testing recall
Troubleshooting
Tracking results
Recording thoughts and impressions

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When traveling, your Memory Journal will also let you make notes about what you did on each day of the trip as you make quick sketches of the places you visit.

To get started, buy a simple notebook. It can be lined or unlined. I recommend that you decorate the cover and then get started listing out as many potential Memory Palaces as you can. If you need help, check out the episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast called How to Find Memory Palaces and make sure that you have the MMM Worksheets that come with my FREE Memory Improvement Kit.

 

Gather Maps, Floor Plans And Think Strategically

 

You’re traveling to enjoy yourself, right? Who wants to sit around drawing squares all day? (Except me?)

Luckily, when visiting many parks, museums and historical locations, you don’t have to spend your time this way. Instead, you can grab up brochures with mockups and floorplans of museums, churches and art galleries for reference later. If your Memory Journal has a storage pack, you can bomb these inside for reference later.

The important thing is that you think strategically when entering the location. Note the corners of rooms and the best areas for Memory Palace creation. You can already start constructing it in your mind.

If you’re experienced, you can also start using the Memory Palace right away. For example, using the Major Method, you can memorize the date of a painting along with its name. If you’re learning a foreign language, this is a great way to pick up new vocabulary.

Use The Memory Improvement Power Of Photography

 

Taking photos of your loved ones and the main attractions is an important part of traveling. But you can get your camera into the Memory Game too by taking photos of building layouts. Hotel beds, for example, make excellent micro-stations in Memory Palaces.

Using PowerPoint software, you can reconstruct the Memory Palace from your photos. For many people, this simple process makes their Memory Palaces much more vivid and useful. You can also use the software to impose information directly onto the Memory Palace stations for Recall Rehearsal.

However, please note that although this kind of activity is acceptable at the beginning stages, it will not strengthen your memory in the same way that drawing Memory Palaces and then using them from your imagination alone achieves. Work towards creating and using tech-free Memory Palaces and your skills will soar.

Think of it as the difference between doddering along with training wheels and the freedom of riding a bike assisted only by your instinctual knowledge of balance, velocity and the physics of pedaling. The only difference is that in matters of memory and the mind, you never need to work up a sweat to get the benefits.

But if you do need some assistance, here’s an example of a Memory Palace station and directionality I created using the Midland Hotel where I stayed during the New Media Europe convention in 2015. As you can see, it’s easy to place the station number and a direction signature for later use as you scroll through the PowerPoint (I used Keynote in Mac):

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As a final camera tip, photograph street corners and use them as Memory Palaces for memorizing street names. It’s a wonderful feeling when you can recall intersections, not just for finding your way back to places, but for giving recommendations to other travelers.

Yes, it’s an ego boost too when you can show off your knowledge of cities around the world. Just don’t let it get to your head and never forget that with great power comes great responsibly. Teach what you’ve learned about memory techniques to others by telling them how you memorized street names.

 

Make Videos For Review Later

 

If you’ve been following my YouTube channel, you’ve probably seen some of the videos I’ve been putting out about creating Memory Palaces along the way.

I even got April into the memory improvement game while visiting Prague:

Part of what I’m doing by making these videos is teaching what can be done to create an impromptu Memory Palace. But I’m also practicing my own memory as I teach.

You don’t have to do anything so elaborate as posting your personal travel videos on YouTube, but the act of shooting the Memory Palaces you want to create will not only make your trip more memorable, but aid you in the creation process. It’s also a fun way to create images of yourself that ideally won’t lead to the corrosion of your memory.

The Forbidden City:

My Most Challenging Memory Palace

 

A lot of historical sites offer fodder for Memory Palace creation, and many are straightforward to navigate and commit to memory. Other historical locations, however, are so sprawling and complex, it’s difficult to know how to use them.

I found this to be the case with the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. It’s not just that the Forbidden City is labyrinthine. There are also many large spaces inside matched by contained areas. The temple structures within each area differ in shape, size and purpose. A few sections feature trees, ponds and fountains. Plus, there are gift shops throughout, many difficult to distinguish from each other.

Rather than take the Forbidden City as one entire Memory Palace, it made more sense to prepare for the creation of three individual Memory Palaces:

The front entrance
The largest structure (name)
The exit

By breaking the Forbidden city down in this way, I can capitalize on two of memory’s biggest assets:

The primacy effect and the recency effect.

Although not always true, we tend to remember the elements of a sequence we encounter first and last the best.

For example, the one and only time I participated in a memory competition with Dave Farrow during the playing cards event, I remember to this day the first few cards and the last few I memorized. I can pick out a few in the middle, but most are hazy. (If I’d used Magnetic Memory Method Recall Rehearsal, I could have overcome the forgetting curve that wipes out the middle part of sequences, but I normally save that process for important info like foreign language vocabulary and names).

 

Study The Layout In Advance To

Maximize Memory Potential

 

Knowing that I’ll be limiting my choices to these areas in advance, I studied the layout on the map before entering the Forbidden City. With a plan for using only a few select spots, I released my mind of the burden of capturing it all and absorbed most of the site on autopilot.

For the entrance, core building and exit, however, I photographed and sketched the layouts to help substantiate them in my memory.

The most important step?

Follow-up.

What does follow-up involve? Rehearsing the Memory Palace right away using the tools of Recall Rehearsal, followed by using the Memory Palace to memorize some information.

For example, as soon as possible after leaving many Memory Palaces on our honeymoon, I asked my fiancee to help me understand some new Chinese vocabulary and then used the new Memory Palaces to encode the sounds and meanings of the words. I sometimes did this fully impromptu without creating a Memory Palace first, which is also an option:

This Memory Palace Technique

Is Good For the Entire Family

 

Whether you’re going to the Acropolis or the Empire State Building, there’s a way to efficiently turn these locations into Memory Palaces without disrupting the flow of your vacation. If you have children and are interested in memory techniques for kids, you can set the foundation for a life of learning with greater ease by helping them maximize their impressionable minds with the global real estate travel puts in their hands.

And if you use the Memory Palaces to learn elements of the local language while visiting the city, all the better. Even if you just learn how to say good morning, good afternoon and good evening to the hotel staff, you’ll make your vacation much richer.

Seriously. Memorizing a few niceties for use in restaurants will endear many staff members to you and this leads to better advice and more patient explanations when you have questions. You’ll also have more fun on your trip.

The trick is not to get nervous about making mistakes and simply open your mouth and speak from your beautiful powers of enhanced recall while your newest Memory Palaces are still fresh.

I hope you take these tips to heart and start enjoying your future vacations at a deeper level by making them both more memorable and more suitable for servicing your Memory Palace needs for years to come.

The post How To Remember More Of Your Vacations With A Memory Palace appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

How to Create an Impromptu Memory Palace With Ease

[image error]Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could create an impromptu Memory Palace on the go? I’m talking about a responsive memory tool that would let you hear a word or phrase and instantly learn, remember and then recall it forever just by thinking of that place.

Here’s the good news:

Creating an impromptu Memory Palace is fun and easy to do. You just need to know the principles of the Magnetic Memory Method, and you’re good to go.

You can create an impromptu Memory Palace in a restaurant as discussed in this video:

Or you can create your first impromptu Memory Palace in a park.

Since park Memory Palaces are a bit more challenging here are the basics using 秋天 qiūtiān (Mandarin Chinese for “autumn”) as an example. Although I struggled with the pronunciation at the beginning (and even experienced a few rare seconds of frustration), the techniques set the stage for success using the rest of The Big Five Of Language Learning.

Scan The Scene For A Suitable Location

 

If you’re familiar with the method of loci, then you know that impromptu Memory Palace elements are everywhere. But you also know that not all Memory Palace stations are created equal.

For example, stations in obscure and hard to measure places really don’t serve as well as stations with fixed features.

Corners, for example, serve as bulletproof stations because they’re fixed. You can instantly zoom to them in your mind. Think of the corner of a park, for example, and BANG, your mind Magnetically zooms there.

The weak memorizer, however, chooses loosey-goosey stations, like “halfway between those clumps of trees,” or places even less certain.

 

Focus On Solid And Certain Stations For Total Success

 

Walking through a park with April discussing German phrases she’s learning, 秋天 came up. My eyes instantly searched for a place to create and secure a mnemonic image.

At that point, I had no idea what image I would create. But I let a sense of relaxation overcome me and trusted the process to do its work.

And, of course, the Magnetic Memory Method delivered (it always does).

 

Combine Your Impromptu Memory Palace

Stations With No-Brainer Associations

 

Of course, you’ve got to be willing to make mistakes, which is exactly what I did.

Why?

Because to memorize the sound and meaning of 秋天 qiūtiān, I saw a giant 9 and yo-yo because 九 jiǔ (nine) sounds similar to my ear.

However, the similarity is a fantasy in my mind that led to one of my classic pronunciation errors. Nonetheless, by associating the tones of 秋天 with the Major Method and using the word as often as possible in sentences, the work of getting it right every time is underway.

Notice too that by writing this post, making the video and the podcast episode, I’m practicing The Big Five Of Language Learning.

Should you go through all these motions online just to learn a word and practice it?

Not necessarily. But you should do it at a personal level to utilize all your representational systems and learn to speak your language.

 

Finish The Impromptu Memory Palace Later

 

The cool thing about a small impromptu Memory Palace like for 秋天 qiūtiān is that there are 3 more terms needed to complete my knowledge of the words for the seasons in Chinese.

冬天 dōngtiān for Winter

春天 chūntiān for Spring

夏天 xiàtiān for Summer

In this case, I used four trees in the park. Each tree served as the station for one of the seasons.

冬天 dōngtiān. I won’t tell you what’s going on with this image, but let’s just say I’m not using a ding dong in combination with a snowy tree.

春天 chūntiān. For this I see Chewbacca chewing on a twenty dollar bill before spitting it out as rusty springs into the tea cup with burning yen.

夏天 xiàtiān. The t-sah-ya sound makes it hard to get a clear image in play, but I have the band Twisted Sister playing Yahtzee with miniature, but blazing hot suns and that works great.

In each case, the goal is to use the mnemonic imagery to bring back the sound and meaning of the words in the same stroke. The point of the impromptu Memory Palace location is to have a mental place to go for recalling the meaning and for playing around with the words in sentences.

For example, “I like autumn” can be changed to, “It is now autumn” and “Tomorrow it will be autumn.” There are countless variations and it’s important to run through as many as you possibly can to help the key vocabulary words stick in place in the context of a sentence.

After that, it’s just a matter of repeating the process with new words and new Memory Palaces.

 

Impromptu Memory Palaces Are Not For Everything

 

At the end of the day, you need to pick your battles. Impromptu Memory Palaces serve small sets of information like the seasons or days of the week well. But for anything larger than ten pieces of information, you might struggle.

Why?

Because the problem with Impromptu Memory Palaces is that you have to recreate them in your mind at the same time you’re recreating the images. But if you use Memory Palaces based on real locations, you reduce the mental load. If you’re really good with Memory Palaces, you eliminate the load altogether.

If you don’t already know how to create the perfect Memory Palace, please consider completing this free Memory Kit. It will help you get the most out of the process.

But here’s the thing:

Nothing happens unless you take action, so please be sure to give this technique a try. Post any questions you have below, and understand that the best questions come from experience and struggling a little bit with the process. Please do not overthink mnemonics. The answers come from taking action and using the techniques

Always.

Further Resources

You can .

Or you can make an impromptu Memory Palace in a restaurant and then practice what you’ve memorized out in the rain. Just make sure to also perform proper Recall Rehearsal.

Mandarin Chinese Mnemonics and Morning Memory Secrets.

The post How to Create an Impromptu Memory Palace With Ease appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

3 Simple Exercises That Make Your Life Worth Remembering

[image error]It sucks to think about death, doesn’t it? You’re busy enjoying life, after all.

Or are you?

Admit it. It’s not always fun and games. Sometimes life really gets you down.

That’s where thinking about death can be strangely uplifting.

In fact, there are powerfully positive and empowering things that can happen when you put time into the notion that one day, you’re not going to be here anymore.

For example, by putting your affairs into order, you can live better now because you’re free from worrying about what will happen after you die. Not enough people put time into this, leaving chaos after their demise that tears families apart. And that can make the memory of your life a bitter pill to swallow for years to come.

But that’s not the direction I want to take us in. Rather, these three simple activities will make your life more memorable starting now. All you have to do is give them a try and you’ll be amazed by how they help.

 

1. Imagine Your Funeral

 

Sounds grim, I know. But once you get into it, seeing and hearing your friends, family and colleagues acknowledge your passing creates perspective and insight that can improve your happiness.

This brain game is best played with pen and paper. Make a list of two friends, two family members and two colleagues (or fellow students if you’re still in school).

Next, write down in their voices one positive memory each person will share about you at your funeral. It could be a story or just a description of an attribute.

Focus on the positive. Don’t invite haters to your funeral. Really feel the positive sentiments and enjoy the warmth they create.

I read this weird little exercise in Richard Wiseman’s 59 Seconds. It’s highly recommended if you’d like some of the scientific background behind this positivity technique.

 

2. All Life’s Profoundest Pleasures Are Found Here

 

You probably already know The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

There’s Mathematical Truth To Frost’s Claim:

You’re much more likely to live a more interesting life simply by taking alternative paths.

And the sooner the better. As we age, many of us grow more conservative. Not because getting old switches on some kind of political gene. It’s because the more assets we gather, the more protective we become of them.

And the biological need to protect the status quo can be irrationally strong. So strong that people have refused to flee volcanic danger zones driven by conservative inertia (this problem relates to social inertia, which is well worth learning about).

 

Live Life Like It’s A Gameshow

 

The Road Not Taken principle relates to something called The Monty Hall Problem. It refers to situations of choice in which it is counterintuitively beneficial to change your mind.

The core issue isn’t the math, however. The real point of interest is that most people will stick with their original decision despite the benefits of traveling the road not taken. I’ve seen this play out hundreds of times as a magician with a simple question that leads over 90% of people to stick with their original decision.

Merely by asking people if they’d like to change their mind and even offering them handsome sums of money if they do, I create the illusion of complete and utter free will because I know that the vast majority will stick with their original decision.

 

 

When The Sane Choices In Life Are Actually Insane …

 

I’ve seen The Monty Hall principle play out in my personal life too. During a difficult time when I couldn’t find a university teaching gig, I applied to get high school teaching certification and did the necessary voluntary teaching in schools to qualify.

As a former university professor, this is not what I wanted to do in life, but I felt driven to teach. And it was taking action, which was far better than sitting around and biting my fingernails.

Then, out of the blue came the invitation to rejoin The Outside, record an album and go on tour. At that point in my career, doing something like that was insane. Nearly every person I talked with about the option agreed, and yet I knew the Monty Hall Problem and let it guide me.

And the reality is that the traditional path was truly the insane one. Plus …

 

The Sane Choice Would Have Been

Totally, 100% Forgettable!

 

Think about it:

Had I gone the traditional route, I would have taken on student debt and locked myself for years in classrooms with students unprepared for the kinds of thoughts I think. It would have been bad for everyone, and that’s not to mention all the teacher’s strikes and worries about a pension I’d go through.

But conservative forces in society were so strong that I almost went for the traditional career. Because I changed my mind, however, I’ve wound up still getting to teach, but in multiples I never would have imagined possible. I’ve been around the world and have over a million free downloads, a dozen bestselling books and tens of thousands of people studying and using the Magnetic Memory Method every single day.

I don’t say that to brag. It’s just the consequence of making a counterintuitive choice that was mathematically bound to create a better outcome. And I’m facing another in the near future that involves living in yet another country. This time I may decide for the conservative choice, but … Probably not.

 

3: This Simple Exercise Will Stop Your

Life From Being Boring

 

One way to instantly make your life more memorable is to document it. You can use writing, podcasting, video or various combinations of media. The point is to get it down. Even if it’s boring.

And quite frankly, it might just be boring at the start. If you’ve never done it before, talking about yourself might seem excruciating.

But the reality is that by going through the exercise on a consistent basis, you’ll develop a talent for spotting the memorable. And there are many things happening every day worth your attention.

For example, two days ago April and I heard a cellist playing Bach in an art gallery. The next day I noticed a store I’d never seen before. Just a few hours ago I observed a heavily tattooed man, including much of his face, playing with his kid in the park.

I wrote all of these things down. And the act of writing the observations down spawns more observation which in turn creates more things to write about.

All wealth comes from writing, so please be sure to take up this practice. Along with envisioning your funeral and taking the roads not taken, observing and writing will help you live a more memorable life.

The best part is that you can also journal with your friends. Jonathan Levi and I have done that recently in Israel just to talk about our memory improvement projects and memorize together in real time:

But whether you journal on paper or video, with other people or alone, put all of the exercises you’ve just learned together and you truly will have an amazing life.

One worth remembering.

The post 3 Simple Exercises That Make Your Life Worth Remembering appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

5 Brain Exercises That Ensure Memory Improvement

[image error]Lots of people do brain exercises, often in the form of brain games. You’ve probably even tried a few, right?

That’s all fine and dandy, but there’s a catch:

Playing brain exercise games on your “smart phone” is not necessarily brain exercise. Not by a long shot.

Brain Exercises Or Brain Thinners?

 

In fact, some of those brain games don’t exercise your brain at all. Rather, they train your brain to get good at completing tasks within the world of those apps. The mental fitness doesn’t apply to other parts of your life.

Bottom line:

If you’re exercising your brain on an abstract level but not directing the fitness at specific life improvement goals, you’re missing out. Your brain fitness must be targeted at specific goals so you get tangible results.

And if you’d like brain exercises that do improve your mind and give you a great mental workout that matters, give the following easy exercises a try. I promise they’ll be fun and give you a memory improvement boost in a short period of time.

 

1. The 4-Details Observation Exercise

 

Gary Small talks about memorizing four details of people you encounter out in public.

For example, let’s say someone is wearing a gray sweater, black hat, red belt and green shoes. The goal is to observe the details first and then recall them later.

Some scientists call brain exercises like these “passive memory training.” They’re passive because you’re not using any special memory techniques. You’re just asking your mind to do what it was designed to do: remember.

Why does this matter?

It matters because we don’t ask our minds to practice observation enough. For that reason, we fail to observe.

So if you’d like to be a better observer of the world around you, this exercise will help. It’s also scalable, meaning that you can start with observing just one person per day. Once you’ve gotten good at recalling four details of just one person, you can add more information or more people (or both).

If you like, you can also notice details about buildings, cars, movies or series, foods that improve memory, etc. But focusing on people is the more potent because being observant of others around you is a great social skill.

 

2. Number Brain Exercises

That Skyrocket Your Concentration

 

I can’t emphasize this enough: numeracy is a powerful skill. It’s something I work on myself as often as possible, both with and without memory techniques in play.

“Add 3 Minus 7” is a fun brain exercise you can try today. To get started, all you do is pick any 3-digit number. Then, add 3 to that digit 3 times. Then minus 7 from the new number 7 times.

Repeat the process at least 5 times and pick a new 3-digit number the next time. You can also start with a 4-digit number and use other numbers to play with. For example, you could start with 1278 and add 12, 12 times and minus 11, 11 times.

It’s up to you and the amount of numbers dictate the level of challenge. This brain exercise also strengthens your working memory because of the amount of detail you need to hold in mind to complete it.

 

3. Repeat What People Say In Your Mind

 

We all know in our hearts that no one is really listening when we speak. And that’s sad.

But here’s the good news: You don’t have to be another person who is just nodding your head like a puppet while actually thinking about something else.

You can train yourself to focus on what people are telling you and remember everything they say.

It all begins by creating presence in the moment in an easy way: Follow the words being spoken to you by repeating them in your mind.

For example, imagine that someone is saying the following to you:

“Tomorrow I want to go to a movie called Memory Maverick. It’s about a guy who cannot forget. He’s hired by a group known only as ‘The Agency’ to infiltrate a competitor. But once the hero learns the secrets, he doesn’t want to hand them over. But since he can’t forget, The Agency starts making his life miserable.”

All you would need to do to complete this brain exercise is repeat everything in your mind. You’ll automatically remember more by doing this.

To remember even more, you can create pictures in your head. For example, you might see an image of Mel Gibson as he looked in the movie Maverick trying to remember something. You might get a picture in your mind of an agency building and scenes of evil men in suits torturing the hero.

It can be a bit awkward to repeat back information like this to people to practice your concentration and memory powers, but you can write an email later from memory: “Hey, did you manage to see Memory Maverick? That whole thing with infiltrating ‘The Agency’ for those secrets and not wanting to hand them over sure sounded cool. What did they wind up doing to make the hero’s life more miserable?”

For more brain exercises on remembering what people are saying, check out this interview with Jim Samuels on the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast. He has some great ideas and the benefits include:

Being more present.
Remembering more of what was said.
Showing people that you’re interested in them and their lives.
Easing conflicts when they arise because you remember the issues in greater detail.

You feel better about your connection to people because you’re really with them.

 

4. The Metronome-Clapping Exercise

 

Back in grad school, I had a great professor named Matthew Clark. For some reason, he told our class in Classical Literature about a great concentration exercise that I’ve practiced ever since.

It’s simple: You put on a metronome at a slow speed and then practice “covering the click.”

I don’t think this brain exercise helps memory in any direct way, but it’s excellent for improving concentration and presence. Both concentration and presence are skills we all need and the more we have, the more we can remember by default.

The better you get at this exercise, the longer the amount of time between clicks you should place. To accurately cover the metronome with a minute between clicks would be impressive!

 

5. Create A Memory Palace

 

The ultimate brain exercise on the planet is also the easiest. It involves nothing more than a simple drawing that follows some simple principles.

Why is creating a Memory Palace such a powerful exercise?

First, creating a Memory Palace draws upon your spatial memory. As far as brain exercises go, this one works kind of in reverse. Why? Because you’re accessing cues that are usually blueprinted on your mind outside of your awareness.

Think about it: You’ve rarely gone into a new home or store with the conscious intent of memorizing its features. Yet, if you think back to the last home of a friend you visited, you can probably recall an insane amount of detail. Creating a Memory Palace lets you exercise that inborn ability.

Second, creating a Memory Palace is creating a tool that you can use for life. Once you have one and you’ve mastered using it, you can create dozens more.

And if you can do that, you can do great things with your memory, like how Matteo Ricci learned Chinese in record time. You can also remember names at events with ease and accomplish any goal in which memory plays a role.

And what goal doesn’t involve memory?

If you’d like to learn how to create a Memory Palace following the good rules of the Magnetic Memory Method, my FREE Memory Improvement Kit will take you through the entire process. It includes videos, worksheets and more to get you up to speed on this important talent.

 

Improve Your Mind With

Brain Exercises And Conquer Any Problem

 

At the end of the day, brain exercises are best when they help you solve problems. Forgetting important details, for example, harms us day in and day out. You now have a brain exercise that will assist you with that.

Not being able to focus on numbers leads us into making all kinds of mistakes. The simple game you’ve just learned is just one step towards improved numeracy skills and a better memory.

You’ve also learned to listen better, be more present and develop concentration for extended periods of time. In many ways, repeating the words of others in your mind or “covering the click” are forms of meditation, a skill known to improve memory.

 

You Now Have The Best Of The Best

 

Finally, you have the opportunity to create a Memory Palace. This simple, ancient invention will also improve your concentration while letting you remember anything. I’m not sure I believe in left brain exercises versus right brain exercises, but I’m confident that if such things exist, the Memory Palace covers them both.

Combined, all of these mind fitness activities will improve your life. They all serve as great brain exercises for kids too, so please pass them on to the young people in your life. On that note, they’re also great brain exercises for seniors, so don’t ignore that branch of your family and social circles either. People of all ages want to keep mentally fit!

 

Turn Your Dream Of Operating

A Fully Fit Mind Into Reality

 

When you regularly complete brain exercises, you’ll feel filled with pride. Few people have the gumption to take consistent action, after all.

Your commitment to what Tony Buzan calls “mental literacy” means you should celebrate. Consistently completing brain exercises should be rewarded, so be sure to factor that in.

You don’t have to think hard about giving yourself the perfect gift, though. The brain fitness that comes from regularly completing brain exercises is its own reward.

The post 5 Brain Exercises That Ensure Memory Improvement appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

9 Signs You Need Memory Training, Memory Techniques And Mnemonics

[image error]A lack of memory training plagues every nation. It’s true.

And as far as I know, no country on the planet includes dedicated memory training in its educational programming.

The result?

We have all experienced unnecessary pain and frustration thanks to forgetting precious information.

 

But That’s Not The Biggest Problem!

 

The biggest problem is that we don’t always know the signs related to our memory problems. Without that critical insight, we can’t make proper decisions about taking memory training. (Worse, you might wind up wasting time on memory training software that you really don’t need if you have a solid understanding of mnemonics and other memory techniques.)

Here’s the good news: I know the signs that you need memory training. And I have the solutions, none of which involve wasting time on tedious memory training games or the fraud of photographic memory training.

Interested?

Let’s go through each of the 9 signs you need memory training in detail so you have a better grip and know exactly what to do. You’ll find a tip included with each sign that will help ease each problem. Work on improving just one issue per month and well within a year, you will be the owner of a superior memory you’re proud to call home.

 

Sign You Need Memory Training #1:

You Can’t Remember Names

 

You know the scene:

Two seconds after hearing someone’s name and shaking hands, you’re looking into the eyes of a stranger. And now instead of paying attention to the conversation, you’re paddling around the pond of your mind …

“Was his name Ross … or Roger … or Tom?”

The feeling is tiring and exasperating. Most of us have grown so accustomed to it that we laugh off our forgetfulness instead of getting memory training to take care of the problem.

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The fix is simple: Learn and practice the simple art of association. When you meet someone named Lars, instantly see Lars Ulrich from Metallica drumming on the top of their head with drumsticks made of “lar”d. If you meet a Betty, see Betty Crocker pouring flour into her ear while midgets “bet” on how Betty is going to react.

The associations don’t have to be celebrities. One John you already know can help you remember the name of another.

Associations are just the beginning of memory training for , a quick tip that will serve you well. There are other memory techniques in this department of the art of memory you can use to memorize names for which you have no immediate association.

 

Sign You Need Memory Training #2:

Your Mind Goes Blank During Exams

 

Stress and pressure cause havoc on memory. The higher the stakes, the more we quake in our boots, especially after weeks of diligent study during which we’ve dreamed of a great post-exam future.

In addition to taking basic memory training based on the principle of association, you can add relaxation to your memory exercise. A lot of people skip this step in memory training (assuming it was included at all), but relaxation is one of the most critical tools in remembering.

Meditation before studying, including progressive muscle relaxation, can be repeated before sitting for your exam. Reproducing the same calm physical state will help your memory in exams a great deal because you will have reduced fight-or-flight syndrome.

In some cases, you can also get access to the examination room and study in it. That way you’ll be entering a familiar environment. And as Scott Gosnell talks about in this interview about mnemonist Giordano Bruno and memory techniques, you can even use that room as a Memory Palace.

Put relaxation and a Memory Palace together as part of your memory training profile and you’ll never need to sweat through an exam again. And here’s more info on avoiding 17 other student fails related to your memory. I got you covered.

 

Sign You Need Memory Training #3:

Your Memory Gets You In Trouble At Work

 

There’s nothing worse than having your boss mad at you because you still can’t remember simple data points or you need your password reset for the umpteenth time.

But countless are the ways having reliable memory skills at work can keep your boss off your back. A good memory based on solid memory training can make you the boss.

Your work undoubtedly involves a lot of numbers, so you’ll want to learn the Major Method. It lets you quickly associate images with numbers so that they’re easy to recall. With a bit of practice, you’ll be rattling off not only budgetary figures but also the complex formulas used to manage them in no time.

 

Sign You Need Memory Training #4:

You Struggle With Dates, Appointments,

Birthdays & Anniversaries

 

When you think about it, putting together the day, month, year and hour of the day is a lot of information. Sometimes we get it all together right away, but usually … not.

You now have a link to the Major Method, but you’ll also benefit from having a mnemonic calendar in your mind. To get started with this aspect of memory training, associate an image with each day of the week. For example, for Friday, see a giant frying pan, an opera-singing satellite for Saturday and a massive Ice Cream Sundae for Sunday.

Once you know the Major Method, you can interact any combination of hours and minutes with any day of the week. You just need to create vignettes or stories using your imagery.

 

Sign You Need Memory Training #5:

You Start And Give Up On Language Learning

Goals Due To Poor Memory

 

People around the world dream of learning a second language, but so few ever do. There are a lot of moving parts involved in language learning, and that means multiple bumps on the road.

But the biggest barrier to entry is memory. You can’t practice a new language without a growing profile of information stored in memory and available for access. And contrary to popular belief, repetition a.k.a. rote learning is not enough on its own.

Rather, you need a dedicated means of creating memories and actively helping your brain access those memories. To do that, this memory training video about The Big 5 Of Language Learning is highly recommended viewing:

Sign You Need Memory Training #6:

You Find It Hard To Concentrate

 

Concentration might not immediately seem like a memory training issue. But in reality, it’s the crux of memory because remembering and recalling information requires focus.

The beautiful thing is that developing your memory automatically increases concentration and focus. Plus, the better you get at one, the better you get at the other.

One great and very light concentration exercise was suggested by Dr. Gary Small. He talks about noticing four aspects of a person you see on the street and then recalling those details a few hours later.

That’s great as a memory training exercise, but as a concentration exercise, practice noticing four details of EVERYONE you see. You’ll find it difficult at first, but soon you’ll find that you’re much more observant of the world around you.

Even better, this increased concentration will spill over into other areas of your life, including paying attention to the details of conversations.

 

Sign You Need Memory Training #7:

You Suffer From “Senior Moments”

 

There’s nothing worse than walking into a room and then forgetting why you went in there.

The reason this happens seems to involve an overwhelm of new stimulation. When you move from one room to the next, for example, you’re suddenly bombarded by new:

* air quality

* light levels

* sounds

* textures

… and potentially people and a whole host of other variables that hold zero connection to the reason you entered the room in the first place.

To combat senior moments like these, try closing one fist tightly while repeating the reason you’re leaving the room. Do this with emphasis as you cross the threshold of the door when you’re first facing a rush of new information.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how quickly senior moments disappear from your life once you start using this unique memory training technique.

 

Sign You Need Memory Training #8:

You’re Constantly Afraid Of

Alzheimer’s & Dementia

 

You have every reason to be worried about brain diseases that rob you of your memory. Alzheimer’s is one of the biggest threats and no one in their right mind wants it.

Although there’s no hard and fast proof that memory training prevents such conditions, it’s a worthy investment because you live in the here and now. Plus, it’s more likely that people serious about their overall brain health will also eat foods that improve memory. That’s an even surer path to protecting your brain as you age.

Once you’ve felt the power of memory improvement, you’ll be inspired to play higher order brain games and do all kinds of things that not only ward off Alzheimer’s and Dementia. The memory training activities help you experience an incredible life so that even if you do face those conditions in the future, you’ll have enjoyed an amazing mental life until that time.

Always remember this: Memory is the now. Always, and yours can be the greatest.

 

Sign You Need Memory Training #9:

You Kick Yourself For Not Doing The Exercises

In That Memory Training You Bought

 

You know you need memory help when you’ve started taking memory training, but never follow through.

However, you have indeed started investing in memory training and that’s a great sign that you can pull through. You just need to create a plan of action based on those memory training books and courses.

Then, commit to reading the entire book from cover to cover or watching all the videos. A lot of people want interactivity and learning by doing is super-important when it comes to memory training exercises.

By the same token, it helps many others to have a global overview. The art of memory has some technical aspects and it really helps to go through everything before getting started.

Either way, complete the exercises.

 

All. Of. Them.

 

The reason memory training resources come with exercises is so that you can see the techniques in action and get results. But if you don’t do them, you won’t fully understand the techniques and your skill set can’t build.

It’s as simple as that. So crack open that memory training book on your shelf. Read it from cover to cover and then do everything it says. Yes, it requires a bit of sacrifice, but it will be the best time, energy and money you’ll ever spend.

Heck, this doesn’t even have to cost you a dime. Libraries still exist, you’ve got my Free Memory Improvement Kit and the Internet is filled with information.

No excuses. Take action and you’ll be rewarded.

 

We All Need Memory Training

 

Believe it or not, even the most accomplished memory champions need help with their memory. Even of the most impressive winners are no better than anyone else without memory training.

And we all need to make memory training, memory exercises, memory techniques and mnemonics an ongoing part of our lives. And just as with any aspect of physical fitness, we need to maintain our gains.

Luckily, just like going to the gym, memory training is fun. It makes you feel great and you can experience a rush of accomplishment whenever you want simply by using the tools your memory training has given you.

If you’re ready to give memory training a try, or if you’re already on the road, take a second to leave a discussion post and let’s get busy remembering everything and anything we want.

The post 9 Signs You Need Memory Training, Memory Techniques And Mnemonics appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

Speech Success Story Using A Magnetic Memory Palace

[image error]Would you like to be able to give a speech directly from memory?

It’s an amazing skill, after all, and something many people in business need to be able to do in more than one language.

Since ancient times people have been using Memory Palaces to give their speeches. In fact, as Jim Samuels has talked about, we get the convention of saying “in the first place” in a speech from the Roman orators who were using Memory Palaces.

Well, let me ask you this:

What If You Don’t Have To Give A Speech From A Memory Palace On Its Own For Your Speech To Benefit From Using Memory Techniques? 

 

Sunil Khatri raised this question in my mind when he wrote to me after giving this speech:

 

I was so impressed by Sunil’s explanation of how he used the Magnetic Memory Method and Memory Palaces to help him with the speech, that I asked if he would record an episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast.

He agreed! As you’ll learn, you can get great benefits from memorizing a speech in advance, even if you still recite it from the page.

The same thing is true of reading from a teleprompter, which the best directors and producers always advise people giving speeches to do: Know where you’re going, but don’t appear like you’re recalling during delivery. It looks weird.

I’m super-excited by Sunil’s results and look forward to hearing your stories of triumph when you use the Magnetic Memory Method to help prepare for your next big speech.

Episode Transcript

Anthony, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk about some of the things I’ve been doing with the Magnetic Memory Method. I just also wanted to also say thank you very much for the support that you’ve given me directly through email interaction has been really, really useful and amazing.

I started learning Korean maybe a little over a year ago I would say and mostly for work purposes. I’ve been traveling back and forth to Korea, and it is a really tough language in my opinion. When I started studying, I would read things like verb conjugations. There could be up to 500 verb conjugations based on the level you are at in society, in your office, your age group, all of these different things come into play in the written language and speech. It was pretty tough.

I started learning and for the 6 months it was through rote memorization, flashcards, and things like that. Then I was trying to figure out is there a better way. Because I had spent the better part of 6 to 7 years learning Japanese and it was all through rote memorialization and talking to people and so forth.

I came across your website and from one link to another to another and it ended up being at your site. I took your intro classes and so forth and it was actually pretty good. Then I started reading up on Memory Palaces more and things like that.

“Korean Words Just Sort Of Magically Appeared In My Brain As I Was Talking … I No Longer Use Flashcards” 

 

What happened was about 6 to 7 months ago, I think that was the first time we communicated, I basically started building a small Memory Palace and expanding that. Korean words just sort of magically appeared in my brain as I was talking, as I was remembering to the point where I gave up using flash cards. I no longer use flash cards.

I put everything into an Excel spreadsheet and categorize them based on my Memory Palace. I come up with a mnemonic picture, crazy picture, whatever it is and associate the word to that crazy picture and there it is. I go through my Excel spreadsheet once a day to put it into long-term memory and it’s been amazing.

 

“Even My Teachers Are Freaking Out.”

 

Even my teachers are freaking out. How am I learning all this stuff so fast? But that was vocabulary. Then I started looking at grammar and things like that. Really in about 6 months I achieved over 500 words through the Memory Palace techniques. It was amazing.

Then I was handed a request to do a speech for my office to a bunch of our clients. Essentially what happened was I said, okay and this was about a week and a half prior to me giving the speech. They said, okay you can do it in English. We’ll have a translator and everything for you. I said well, that’s great thank you. Then I thought about it. I said, wait a minute let me try this in Korean and see what I can do.

 

“Actually A Lot Of This Was Beyond My Vocabulary”

 

The speech was about 3.5 to 4 minutes, 5 minutes long. Rather than say, “Oh my god, I don’t know any of these words,” because actually a lot of this was beyond my vocabulary. It really focused on a lot of different types of grammars that you would use in a very formal setting. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know any of these structures or things. Some of the words were quite new.

What I basically said was, I said all right I am going to think about doing this in Korean. Let me try and see if I can break this down. I guess when I said I think I’m going to do it, it really meant I’m going to do it and there was no looking back for me.

I took the words, basically got the meanings of what the speech was in English and then took the Korean statements and broke it down into an Excel spreadsheet. So rather than reading everything as you would normally do, I took small phrases and put them in a cell in the Excel spreadsheet and then I created the mnemonics associated with that. Those wordings and so forth.

 

“It Was Pretty Daunting”

 

It turned out to be several hundred cells in the Excel spreadsheet with phrases and so forth. Then I started memorizing, and I did this in about a week. I got about 70 percent of the way through it, and then started working with a person on my team to kind of walk me through how to say the phrases. Where are the emotions, where are the intonations and so forth.

Then from there I kind of build up what I say, how I say it, where I would put the stresses and so forth in a natural language type of view. It really was quite amazing. Then I just went through the Excel spreadsheet and started practicing over and over and over again to get that into memory. The remaining 30 percent was sort of rote because I just didn’t have time to do the mnemonics. Because it was only in about 5 days I put all this stuff together.

The day of the speech came, and I got in front of couple hundred people, all Korean. I started talking and I used the notes. Because it was pretty daunting. Standing in front of a crowd and just trying to remember all these things and the stresses of speaking. Speaking in front of a crowd is difficult anyways.

I had my notes but what my notes were the Excel spreadsheets. It was basically two pages just printed out, and I started just working through it. It was incredible. The crowd reaction was great. Everything was good. I just had a great time because all of this stuff was right there. The way that you pronounce things, even though I was referring to my notes. It was really amazing.

 

How To Experience Boosts In Confidence From Your Memory

 

It just gave me a huge new level and boost in confidence. I’m nowhere near fluent but I can guarantee you that this is all I’m doing now. I don’t use flashcards. I don’t do anything. All my learnings, not just in Korean but even beyond Korean, are based now on how I use Memory Palaces and your teachings and so forth. Really, really amazing.

I’m continuing to focus on Korean but I’m also looking at other languages later. I really want to look at Mandarin Chinese as you’re doing. This is, again, I feel only after about 6 months of working with the Memory Palace techniques.

It took me years to get to be able to speak in Japanese in front of people and even now I’m hesitant. But I’m going to back and apply these techniques to that too. Really amazing stuff. Thank you for the opportunity and I will continue to converse with you and get your advice on all the problems that I know I’m going to continue to have. Thank you so much.

============

Anthony, just one more thing I wanted to add if it is possible to edit it in or do something.

I had mentioned about 70 percent of the speech I had done using a Memory Palace and 30 percent because I just did not have the time. I just sort of started reading the end of it.

There was actually a noticeable difference in that 70 percent versus the 30 percent that people were telling me. They said, “Oh, the 70 percent that you did, the first part of the speech sounded so good, rhythmic, everything was there. The 30 percent sort of trailed off a little bit.”

I owe that to the fact that I didn’t go through the mnemonics for that last bit. Even though I was able to continue doing it, reading it and kind of working through and people were still excited that I was being able to do this whole thing in Korean.

So the application to Memory Palaces and so forth is really critical, I think, from a grammar perspective as well as from a comfort level. Because once you ingrain those things in your head, whether it’s subconsciously or whatever, when you’re reading it, those emotions and that structure come out.

I just wanted to add that statement. But once again, thank you so much. Take care.

Sunil’s Speech In Korean

안녕하세요.  AKL HQ의 IT를 총괄하는 순일 상무 입니다.

여러분들의 뜨거운 열정과 도전으로 한국 암웨이가 25주년을 맞이 하였습니다.

한국 암웨이와 함께 걸어온 25주년을 축하하고자, 대구경북 ABO 리더님들을 모시고

암웨이 프라자에서 ‘A Happy Birthday Festival’ 행사를 개최하게 되었습니다.

많은 ABO 리더님들께서 이렇게 말씀하십니다.

“ 암웨이 사업은 분위기를 타는 사업이다. 요즘은 그 어느 때 보다도 사업하기 좋은 분위기이다 “

실제로 한국 암웨이는 25년 전 오픈 당시에 비해서, 제품 수는 5개 에서 500 여개로,

매출액은 50억원 대에서 1조가 넘는 마켓의 독보적인 리더로서 지속 안정적으로 성장하고 있습니다.

아마도 이렇게 지속 안정적으로 성장 할 수 있는 원동력은

여기 참석하신 ABO 리더님들의 열정과 도전 정신을 기반으로, AKL과 함께 일구어낸 소통과 화합이

있었기에 가능하다고 생각합니다.

이번 25주년 기념 행사가 또 하나의 소통과 화합의 장이라 생각합니다.

암웨이 프라자에서 일주일간 진행되는 다양하고 신나는 이벤트에 많이 참여하시고,

마음 껏 즐겨 주시기 바랍니다.

내가 먼저 우리 함께 !!!   신나는 암웨이!!!    감사합니다.

 

What About You?

 

Do you have a story of using a Memory Palace to give a speech?

Or how about your struggles with speeches in public? How would better memory skills help you in this area? Take a moment to leave a comment below and get the discussion started.

As Sunil’s experience demonstrates, memorizing even a speech you intend to read from the page improves your delivery beyond belief. Keep that in mind the next time you need to give a speech either in public or on the screen.

The post Speech Success Story Using A Magnetic Memory Palace appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

Tony Buzan On The Paradise Of Multiple Intelligences

[image error]If You Don’t Know Tony Buzan And Mind Mapping, This Exclusive Interview Will Unlock The Multiple Intelligences Waiting To Come Alive Inside You

Actually, it’s unlikely that you haven’t heard of Tony Buzan before. Even if that is the case, your life has almost certainly been touched by someone whose creativity and intelligence was revived by the ideas, processes and incredible inspiration found only in the Buzan troposphere, stratosphere and infinite universe of imagination and inventiveness beyond.

Either way, today’s your lucky day, because you’re about to learn:

How Tony Buzan transformed himself from thinking he was stupid to knowing he is extraordinary. (You’ll be modeling this simple tactic before you know it.)
How to create an imagination so valuable that you would never sell it – not even for a trillion dollars!
How to use your mind to deal with the dark times. No matter how deep the valleys go, with Tony Buzan’s approach, they still can be fascinating and even fun.
… and much, much more.

In this interview, Tony Buzan also reveals one of his personal heroes and gives clues on how to maximize the power of your own. We talk about threats to the future and exactly how you are already equipped to deal with anything and everything that could ever come your way.

Make sure to download the MP3 to your desktop and revisit this episode often.  You can also download a PDF of the transcript and go over it using the same speed reading skills you’ve learned from the master himself. I recommend that you print out a copy and share it with your friends.

And as you do, be sure to visit Tony Buzan on Twitter, Amazon and check out the World Memory Championships homepage for details of this years event and all of the incredible records over the past 25 years.

Plus, don’t forget World Mind Mapping Day. Here’s a beautiful and amazing mind map about it created by Phil Chambers:

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Tony Buzan On The Paradise Of Multiple Intelligences

Anthony: Tony, thank you so much for being on the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast. It’s been in the making for a while. I’m really excited, actually, that we have done it after I had a chance to meet you and attend one of your trainings, which was so pivotal for me even after some time in the world of memory training. It was just a delight and an honor to learn from you directly. So thank you for being here.

Tony: Well, thank you for being on my course, and thank you for having read so many of my books. Thank you for being such a good beacon really for other people who need to follow the development of their own mental literacy and the empowerment of their memories, their mind mapping skills, their reading, speed reading, their study skills, and their mind-body coordination. You are a lovely example.

Anthony: Well thank you very saying that. It kind of circles back to you, because I remember in high school first just being fascinated by your name and the covers of your book, and they’re really adventures to get into once you’re in there. They are so unique because of that. I know that there are ideas behind how you even design your books to make them feel that way. It’s just amazing how the world works and how fate puts you in certain places.

 

“I trained myself very cleverly to become stupid, and

I was very successful.” 

 

Tony: It does doesn’t it. It’s almost odd that when I was in school I didn’t like schoolwork. I didn’t like homework. I didn’t like taking notes. I didn’t like studying. So you would think that the person who has written books on studying and thinking would have loved it, but he didn’t. That is actually the beginning of my journey, because I had begun to realize that the way that I was being taught in my school, like in many other hundreds of thousands of schools, I was being taught in a way that turned me off my brain, tuned my brain out. I tuned it out very well. I trained myself very cleverly to become stupid, and I was very successful.

Anthony: Talk about that. What do you define as stupid and how did that feel?

Tony: I think probably stupid, which is a word that ideally should not need to be used anywhere, means being unable to use the natural skills and intelligences with which the brain is gifted. We are, i.e., we humans are astonishingly brilliant, beautifully multiply intelligent.

When the brain is given misinformation, because it learns so fast and when it believes people who tell it what it is, when they are told things that are wrong and they believe them, then they train themselves to become less intelligent. I did that brilliantly.

 

The Only Stupid Thought Tony Buzan Has Ever Had

 

It was aggravating because I had dreamt of being bright. I had dreamt of being successful. I wanted to be. Yet I would do poorly on certain exams. I couldn’t remember the dates in history. I couldn’t remember the formulas in chemistry and physics. I began to think I was stupid. That perhaps was the only stupid thought I had.

We are all basically naturally brilliant and it started me on the journey. When I began slowly to realize I am actually brighter than I think I am, that my studying methodology was not only not helpful, it was the opposite of being successful. It helped me get worse and worse.

Anthony: What was the tipping point that enabled you to have a change of mind and set you on the path to thinking more positively and starting to learn in a more optimal way and then design optimal learning strategies?

Tony: There were a number of tipping points. One was my best friend. We were seven years old and my best friend and I only loved nature. That was our main hobby. My best friend could identify the flight patterns of any butterflies or birds. He could identify them with machine gun like accuracy. That’s a sparrow. That’s a cabbage white butterfly.

But, in school, he was called stupid because he was illiterate, he was innumerate, he was dyslexic. But I didn’t know those terms existed. He was just my brilliant friend. I began to think, hold on. How can they possibly be calling this best friend of mine stupid, and sometimes calling me quite bright when I knew that he knew more than I knew about nature? So that was turning point one.

 

Where Not To Look For Your Brain’s Operating Manual

 

Another major tipping point was the fact that when I was at university I went into the library, because I was panicking about exams. I thought I’d go find out how to use my brain. I walked in the library, and I said to the librarian, “I need a book on how to use my brain.” She pointed to the medical section and said the medical section is over there. I thought what? I don’t want to take my brain out. I don’t want to operate on it. I want to know how to operate it. She said there are no books on that. That made me think … what?

Whatever I buy, whether it’s a pack of aspirins, or a little radio, or a washing machine, or a car, what am going to get? I am going to get an operations manual. But for this delightful extraordinary gift of a brain, I get no operations manual. That’s when I began to write.

Thank you for your kind words about the covers on the books, because once I wrote one book, people were asking for another book. My first book, Use Your Head, which really was the operations manual, was really written for my brother, my friends and me. It included chapters on memory, chapters on creativity, on reading, on speedreading, on studying, on note taking, and on the origination of mind maps.

 

How One Book Become

One Hundred And Forty-Two Others

 

Another tipping point:

People said Tony don’t write that book because as soon as you’ve written it, everybody will copy it, will learn from it and you won’t have any more books to write. It was exactly the opposite. I wrote that book, Use Your Head, and as soon as people and publishers had read it, they would point to me and say, “You’ve got a chapter here on memory. Why don’t you do a full book on memory?” I’d say yeah, okay.

Sure enough within a few months people were saying, that chapter in Use Your Head on mind maps, why don’t you have a book on mind maps? So I thought, yeah, okay. Then when I’d written the mind map book, which was the child of Use Your Head, people read the mind map book and said have you done a book for children on mind maps?

I said no, you know some of it is in the book. They said no, no, a full book just for kids. So I said okay. Publisher came up and said could you do three mind map books for kids. One on mind maps the introduction. One on mind maps memory. One on mind maps for studying. Every book gave birth to more books.

As you and I are speaking right now, I am now on book No. 142. I’m sitting in my garden, and for this afternoon I’ve been working on two books, and in the next hour I’m going to be meeting with a designer, co-designer and co-editor this evening to work on another book.

Anthony: Wow, this is incredible and it reminds me and connects me to some other things that I wanted to ask you. You’ve written about multiple intelligences. You were a huge figure in developing that field. I think that not enough people really recognize how, or at least in the material I’ve read, how that you actually are a demonstration of all these multiple intelligences, because it’s not just about books, right?

You have written books but you’ve been responsive to the audience that wanted more books. But not just through books, you’ve gone into various parts of media such as television, and then you’ve produced software for people and are using the Internet in creative ways, and the mind map itself, the things you’ve done is art and you’ve also been a proponent of art itself.

 

How To Find Your First Multiple Intelligence

 

You brought beautiful art to the training that I attended. It’s just incredible. Then you turn people into artists. Just how do you explain your interest in all of this and the energy that keeps you going and enables you to do it? I know it is multiple intelligences and I know that it comes down to things that you’ve classified – creativity, personality, the social, the spiritual, the physical and so forth. But a lot of people just see this from a person like yourself and they’re like, where’s the alpha here? Where do we begin?

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Tony:  That’s a lovely question because it is a question worth me thinking about. Because when I was a 7‑year-old, 10‑year-old, 12‑year-old boy, I was a kind of good above-average kid, but I was poor in sports. I was virtually hope less with art. Socially I was fairly good but not fully aware of how to get on with other people.

I gradually began to realize, for example with my first intelligence, I began to become very attracted to young girls. The spark in my eyes started when I was about 5. But I didn’t know anything about that.

By the time I was 12, most of my other male friends became interested in girls and so did I. I began to think well I want to get a good girlfriend so I better get strong. So I then went into the gym and I learned how to run. I learned how to swim. I learned how to build my muscles because I wanted to be a good guy on the beach that girls would find attractive because of my good built-up body, my biceps and my six-pack.

 

The Real Secret Of Verbal Intelligence

 

I was at a party and I developed my verbal intelligence. So I was pretty good at that stage of talking, fairly good at writing and I was getting strong. So I thought the girls would immediately gravitate towards me.

I noticed that some kids who were not doing well in school, not doing well in sports, but they were funny. They were telling good jokes. They were making people laugh and girls would go more for them than they went for me. And I thought how can they be possibly more interested in an unfit kid doing badly in school when I’m doing now well in school and I’m strong.

It quickly dawned on me that being humorous having a sense of humor was a massive creative and social intelligence. I thought well I better build up the package. I better learn how to tell some jokes, learn how to be funny, learn how to make a fool of myself. Not try to be so clever, so good and so always top.

Over the years, and it was years, I began to realize about multiple intelligences. Then my hero in my early teens, throughout the teens and the rest of my life was Leonardo Da Vinci. Who would I really like to be? Sometimes people teach us in saying who would you like to be. I was thinking who would I like to be.

 

When and Why Being A Copycat Is Good For You

 

Would I like to be a fabulous artist? Yes, I would. Would I like to be a physically fit man? Yes, I would. Would I like to be an architect? Yes, I would. Would I like to be an astronomer? Yes, I would. Would I like to be a sculptor? Yes, I would. Would I like to be a top scientist? Yes, I would. Of course, they were all wrapped into Leonardo Da Vinci. So he became my hero and I began to study him. As any kid does, try to copy my hero.

So that was part of my journey into multiple intelligences and some of the tipping points in my life that led me to where I am. I now know, it’s not even just think, I know that nearly every kid on the planet can develop into this multiply intelligent wonderful human being.

Anthony: It seems like there is a bit of a code that can be extracted from what you’ve said which is essentially becoming an observer of your desires, observing the observation and then figuring out a way to take action. Would that be fair to say?

Tony: That would be a good beginning summary. In fact, Leonardo said something dead on that. He said, I’ll put this into different words, but basically what Leonard was saying was, look guys, don’t keep calling me an artist. I’m not just an artist. I am more than that. The word artist means a surface level somebody with paintbrushes who paints.

He said but I am a student of nature, and what I do is I notice that people don’t look and don’t see. We need to look and see. So he said I am simply a student of nature. I, Leonardo, am a student of nature and I observe her. When I observe her, I study her, I analyze her, I remember her, I copy her and then I add to whatever she’s given me and that is action. That’s what he did.

He would go into the woods, into the fields and he would observe flowers or animals, and he would observe them. He would then study them. He would analyze them and then he’d measure them. He would then copy them. When he had copied them that helped him remember them, and when he copied and copied say this kind of flower or this kind of face, then he would begin to change it in his own mind’s way. Those were his actions, a total genius. If anybody wants to learn to draw, copy Leonardo because he said copy nature. So go out there and learn how to copy. It’s wonderful.

 

How To Be A Real Teacher

And Touch The Lives Of Millions

 

Anthony: I think a common idea that we come up with, and it certainly is in the air already, is something about the way that we are put into schools interrupts this process that you were just talking about which is so elegant and simply has certainly helped you lead an incredible life that has changed so many lives.

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Sometimes one wants to point the finger at the Victorian sort of nature of the school education system that has somehow made it’s made its way into the 21st century, but where do you see things now. What do we do to help people regardless of why? If it is the school, or they are not eating properly, or however things are playing in their lives, how do we help people participate in this procedure that you described so beautifully, into what you have called, actually to quote you, a mentally literate planet? At the core of things, how do we get this to more people?

Tony: Good question and an immediate answer is what you are doing now. You’ve got a podcast. You are contacting tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions of people. You are spreading global mental literacy. That’s one wonderful way to do it. Another is to be a teacher, but a real teacher, a teacher who is a beacon to a child. A teacher who is someone who launches the child on the exploration of their internal universe. A teacher is a harvester of questions so being a teacher is a wonderful most important profession. Mind mapping is another way.

Let me give you the hot off the presses two bits of information. We are now approaching the beginning of August. August 19 is the day. It’s a global mental literacy day and on that day, two things are going to happen.

No. 1, I have just been nominated and going to be given the Toastmaster Award. The Toastmaster organization has 15,000 members in 135 countries. Their simple goal for each individual Toastmaster is to learn how to present and to learn how to become confident. As soon as someone learns how to speak publicly, and obviously mind maps are a wonderful way to do that, and as soon as they do that, they then become more confident. When they get to that stage, all they have to do is to help another person do the same. So it’s like a wonderful positive brush fire, a positive viral.

The Toastmasters are going to give me the Golden Gavel Award in Washington, D.C. on August 19 this year. I will be speaking to 2,000 people from 135 countries and all of them know about mind mapping. They are anointing me as like a new leader for them to help the planet learn how to communicate and how to give birth to more leaders. Because people who can communicate, are confident and know how to think can help the world.

So on that day, the 19th, I’m going to be given that award and will be connected to 15,000 people who believe in human beings and believe in helping them to help each other, how to communicate, how to learn and how to become a leader that’s an ultimate global goal. So, please come to Washington and be with me there.

Announcing The First Ever World Mind Map Day!

 

On that same day, that day is now also going to be announced as the World Mind Map Day because there are global days for football and global days for golf and global days for politics or whatever. But this is the World Mind Map Day on August 19, 2016. On that day, the goal is for every mind mapper on this planet and there are already well over 300 million mind mappers, the goal is to have every mind mapper get as many mind maps out in as many ways as possible.

For example, if you’re an individual who mind maps, you don’t do an enormous number of big things, but you could get mind maps on your Skype, on your Twitter, on your Facebook, you could put mind maps on your car, when you go into a restaurant you could give them a fabulous mind map to stick on the window. You could put mind maps on billboards. You could give them to schools, give them copies, and/or send them virtually.

If you’ve got a little database of a thousand or ten thousand people, send mind maps to every one of them saying welcome to the World Mind Map Day. On my Twitter, my Twitter home page is @tony_buzan. The World Mind Map mind map is there so you can retweet that.

It is going to be like a super nova. It is going to explode mental literacy around the world, and I am really happy with that because in this modern age, despite the fact that the information age has given us a lot of information overload, it can do wondrous things. One of the things it can do is to spread good news to every brain, igniting every brain to become a flame with a beauty, the magnificence of the human mind.

Anthony: This is absolutely true and I’m glad that you raised the topic of people just getting their own podcast or getting out there and Tweeting at whatever level that they can to help spread the good news about these techniques and about the people who are really expert at explaining them.

 

The Power Of Lineage In The World Of Memory,

Multiple Intelligence And Creativity

 

Tony: The power of podcasts is a good phrase. You could use that, the power of podcasts because it’s very powerful. You know, if you, for example, Anthony influence one person on one interview you have, and that person transforms the world, it might have been a little Thomas Edison, it might have been a little Maria Montessori, it might have been a little Mandela, it could have been any child who you influenced and ignited. Then one podcast with one person changed and evolving it would be wonderful.

Anthony: I just wanted to tell you, to make a concrete example for people and I should really give a shout out to someone special. I’m here in Tel Aviv, and I have this podcast and maybe we came into connection because you were in British Columbia where I grew up. So maybe there was something in the air about that. Having grown up with your influence and then learning all this time and I’m in Tel Aviv.

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I just let people know on my podcast and through my email that I’m here and a guy named Eldon Clem emails me. He’s in Jerusalem and we haven’t managed to connect yet, but I really want to meet him because he’s taken my training that he found out because that I spread the word about these things, and I’m almost choking up here because he emailed and he said that what I’ve done has changed how he teaches Semitic languages. I’ve talked to him over a year ago and he told me that he memorized a thousand words in six weeks of ancient Ethiopic and this is a very difficult language where the words have three letters. He said it was no problem though. I just went on to read a thousand words and then I just started incorporating your stuff into my classes and now I heard that he’s even using the Memory Palace as a technique to give quizzes.

So this is how the lineage works. From me seeing your books as a kid in British Columbia to ultimately getting to meet you and already having had the podcast in action and then somebody gets involved in my stuff and then they start passing it on to students. He said they are getting great success because it enables them in the testing period. So I just want to take this opportunity to give a concrete example that’s happening right now and I hope to meet him and let him know that I spoke with you. It’s amazing what can happen.

Why You Should Come To The

2016 World Memory Championships

 

Tony: Wonderful. I mean your story links in with the World Memory Championships, because that was just an idea that I had many decades ago. Why are there tidily winks championships? Why are there chess championships? High jumping championships, long jumping championships, weight lifting championships, you name it there’s a championship and nothing on memory. I thought we’ve got to have a World Memory Championship. I discussed that and people said Buzan you must be crazy. What’s the point of having a memory competition? Nobody will be interested in that.

This year is the 25th World Memory Championships. It is the Jubilee year, No. 25, and there are tens of thousands of competitors and there are multiple grand masters of memory spreading around the world. All the people in the World Memory Championships, like you Anthony, are busting all the barriers that are placed around the human brain.

It’s like balustrades, pickets that are staked around the human brain and it is fenced in like a trapped animal, when in fact when the brain knows how to think, knows how to remember, knows how to learn, knows how to be intelligent, it will break all those barriers. I’m sure you’re going to be at the World Memory Championships this year, which are now going to be in Singapore this year December 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18, World Memory Championships. Please, both you and me, invite everybody from your podcast group, team to come to Singapore.

Anthony: Let’s do it! Maybe you can help make it concrete for people. What is the No. 1, or by all means add more than one if it comes to mind, but what would you say is the top benefit of participating in the World Memory Championships for someone who is already feeling that sense of resistance? Like I could never go what’s the tipping point for them to get in there and just give it a try.

Tony: One of the great events in your life, when you compete you will naturally meet all the greatest memorizers in the world. You’ll meet every Grandmaster. You’ll meet Dominic O’Brien, eight-time World Memory Champion who as a kid in school who was told you will never succeed. You can’t remember. You can’t concentrate. You are useless. Get out of this school. He became the eight-time World Memory Champion because he suddenly realized, oh, they say I’m stupid but I’m not.

If you went to the World Memory Championships, you would meet all the people. You would meet me because I will be there. You would meet Anthony Metivier. I mean what a wonderful opportunity. You would be meeting people who would charge something like £1,000.00 or £2,000.00 an hour for their time and you would be meeting them as new friends.

It would be like going into the United Nations where all the presidents of the countries were coming together and you’d just be with them. Same in the memory championships and as soon as you competed, you would learn that your memory, no matter how poor, weak and bad you think it is, it’s powerful and all you need is the correct formulas for unlocking the doors of your genius.

 

How To Create A Trillion Dollar Brain

 

I’ve asked people sometimes how much would I have to pay you to promise that you’d obliterate your memory of the World Memory Championships. You just wipe out your memory of it. If you met all the world champions, the national champions, all the best memorizers and they taught you how to remember. If you met all the top competitors in the world, you met Tony Buzan, Anthony Metivier, Grandmaster Raymond Keene, the ultimate chess, mind sports, Times journalist and writer, how much would I have to pay you if you promised to forget all of it? People said, no matter how much you pay me I would choose to remember it all. It’s changed my life. It would destroy me if I forgot all that I now know about memory and my new friend Dominic O’Brien. People have said if you offer my £100,000.00, I would still say no. It’s priceless. That’s how important it is.

Anthony: I feel the same way about having attended your training. You couldn’t pay its way out of my memory. It’s just too valuable.

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Tony: Thank you for saying that, because if you and all the people on the podcast here said listen Buzan we’ll give you a trillion pounds if you promise that you’ll never use a mind map again, you will never use anything in your books, you wouldn’t use your speed reading, you won’t use your studying skills, you won’t use your creativity, you won’t use your multiple intelligences, but we’ll give you a trillion pounds. I would say you must be mad! What’s the point of wiping my brain out for a trillion pounds? My brain is infinitely valuable and that’s how important it is.

Anthony: Absolutely. One of the things that I want to point out is that I went to the training that I went to as someone who already used the techniques, and I’m just so devoted to learning as much as I possibly can. I was blown away not only by how little that I know but how little that I knew about what I know. Let me put it that way.

Tony: There is that kind of a common saying in most cultures including the Arabic culture, Japanese, Chinese, European cultures. The common saying is the more you know the less you know.

 

The Truth About What You Know About What You Know

About What You Know About …

 

That is a complete misinterpretation of what actually everybody meant. The real saying is, the more you know the more you know, and the more you know the more you know that there is even more to know than you thought you would have to know.

Anthony: That is a much more empowering and profound and useful way of using that phrase.

Tony: So I now know that I know a lot more than I ever knew before, and I know that now that I know all that, I know now know there that there are an infinite number of infinite number of infinite number of other things I don’t yet know and would love to know.

Many people are saying about old age, people are saying I don’t want to be old. I don’t want to be over 80. It would be terrible. My brain would rot and I don’t want to learn anymore. My brain is stuffed which is sadly tragic. Because the fact is, the human brain can learn an infinite number of things.

 

Why Tony Buzan Wants To Live Forever

 

Therefore I want to live forever because would like to be a concert level violinist? Yes, I would. Would I like to be a concert level pianist? Of course, I would. Would I like to be a brilliant gymnast? Of course, I would. Would I like to be an Olympic level swimmer? Of course, I would.

Would I like to be a bestselling novelist of detective stories like Sherlock Holmes? Of course, I would. Would I like to be a top children’s author with 100 books? Of course, I would. Would I like to go to every country? Of course, I would. Would I like to spend years in each country, in different cities?

Would I like to spend 10 years in Paris learning French, learning French cuisine, learning French philosophy, French poetry, French literature, and French music? Of course, I would. How many years is that going take me? Trillions of years. I would love to live forever.

Every day of my life is wonderful even when I’m in pain or sad or depressed or melancholic, or contemplating suicidal thoughts, I’d far rather be alive than not.

 

How To Deal With The Darkness

Without Pills Or Psychiatrists

 

Anthony: Let’s go in this direction a little bit. How do you deal with those challenges that you’ve just mentioned, the dark times? We give this impression always these super incredible intellects they just have it all and live in paradise. But, it’s not the case. So what do you do? How do you use your multiple intelligences to deal with the down sides?

Tony: When I’m down, I explore the bad. You know for example, if I give you a simple example about having nightmares, and let’s say things are going pretty awfully and friends are dying, personal situations are difficult, sickness or illness causes nightmares, and people wake up screaming in the middle of the night with monsters howling or whatever.

Rather than waking up screaming and trying to block out the nightmares, I now think, because I used to try to stop them, but then I began to think hold on a minute, among the most popular movies on the planet are horror movies. Horror movies and how much do they cost to make? It costs $250 million to make one horror movie.

What is my nightmare like? It’s a lot better than that one $250 million movie. It’s fabulous. It’s got monsters in it that I’ve never even imagined before. It has unbelievable pain. It has all the horrors. So I now think, wow, what a great story that is, wat a great poem that will be. You know like the American author Edgar Allen Poe. His horror stories, he got those from his nightmares. Wonderful.

I recently had a big molar wisdom tooth taken out, which was infected, broken, so it was literally a bloody mess. I was asked to take paracetamol or any other painkiller to prevent the pain because for two days it would be really painful after the numbness disappeared from the eight needles I had to have.

I said no, I’m not going to take any painkiller because pain is information. It’s a friend of mine. My mouth is telling my brain I’m in agony. I am bleeding. I am ripped apart. I am in asunder. I am still bleeding and I’m trying to tell you Tony, please look after me. You know rinse me, listen to me, hear me, and so I had all night conversations with pain.

What was fascinating was that the pain in my mouth was a giant pulse – roomph, roomph, roomph. Why? Because the blood was pumping and it was all open and damaged, and it was roomph, roomph. The more I got into it the more it was like a wonderful music, roomph, roomph, and sure enough after five hours of listening to that, I went to sleep. I was sent to sleep by my pain.

 

The Magic Of Rowing 

 

When I went sculling, you know, rowing sculling in the morning, I was told do not do any big exercise for two days because it will break open all the sealing. But on the third day, I went sculling and every time I put my oars in the water, where I took all the strain, roomph. Every time I took a stroke my mouth, my crater went roomph, roomph, roomph. So it was telling me exactly the moment that I put all my effort into rowing. Stroke, stroke, row, row, and it was in my mouth. I mean it was phenomenal.

Anthony: Rowing has been a fascination of yours and something you’ve been deeply involved in for a long time. Where did that begin and how has it been that it fascinated you so deeply that you still do it to this day? You did it even the morning before you came into the training that I attended.

Tony: I fell in love with it because I saw a superb male athlete sculling in a single boat. In your life, you suddenly see things, and it’s pretty well the same for everybody. Everybody sees something and wow, I want to be like that. I just saw this athlete sculling and it was the most beautiful sport I have ever seen.

I just thought I want to do that. I want to be able to skim across the water like one of those fabulous insects that skims across the water. I wanted to do that with all my gymnastic muscles rippling but not going solid but more flowing. It was wonderful. I did it this morning. This morning I rowed 4,000 meters on the River Thames.

Anthony: I remember you telling us that your doctor said you were definitely in prime territory to keep going for a long, long, long time to come.

Tony: I would invite all the podcast people. Put in your diaries guys June 2, 2042. Second of June, 2042, that’s my 100th birthday. Make sure you come.

Anthony: Absolutely, I can’t wait for the 100th birthday of Tony Buzan!

Tony: What I would love to do is do another podcast with you.

 

The Greatest Challenges To Planet Earth And Humanity

 

Anthony: I would love that as well, and the time has gone so fast and I really appreciate that you’ve been able to be here. If I could ask one last question before we go, what in your future do you feel is your biggest challenge and as a person with so many tools to tackle them, what is your No. 1 tool for tackling that challenge?

Tony: That’s another book of a question. The greatest challenge to this planet is the destruction of intelligence. It can be destroyed in a number of ways. It can be destroyed in schools where like I taught myself to be stupid and I was very successful. Children have to be taught to learn how to learn and then they will think intelligently and they will deal with all the future problems and they will find solutions. That’s one.

Another threat is technology used in the wrong way. So for example, when technology is used, consumes all the hours of a day that has people become couch potatoes, diabetic, fat, nonathletic, that’s the negative side of technology. Technology when used well, like you can use mind maps with technology to your advantage. That’s another wonderful threat and opportunity.

We must learn how to use technology intelligently. So we have to use information intelligently. We have to use agriculture intelligently. We have to use knowledge intelligently, and we have to use intelligence intelligently because the threat is that if we don’t use intelligence intelligently, we lose intelligence. If we lose intelligence, we die. It’s as simple as that. Think intelligently or die.

Anthony: Absolutely.

 

How To Eliminate The Manipulation Of Thinking

 

Tony: Another big threat is the manipulation of thinking. So for example, in politics all the arguments are spun. Truth is manipulated. When truth is distorted, being destroyed, intelligence becomes destroyed.

So in politics for example, if there is some wonderful evidence that when people eat a lot of junk food, all the statistics show that the brains in the wombs of pregnant women, the brain in the embryo get destroyed or damaged. There are masses of incontrovertible information, studies done on hundreds of thousands of pregnant moms, and we know that if someone keeps on stuffing themselves with dangerous food, the body bloats and basically explodes.

There are many people when they are given information like that, they say yeah, yeah, yeah that’s what those statistics say, but statistics always lie. I know and I believe that eating all the food that I eat is good for me. I know it. I believe in it. You’ve got to believe in it. I mean I am still alive. I may weigh 400 pounds, but so what? I enjoy that food and those statistics must be wrong. I believe in what I believe.

That is intelligence hypnotized, mesmerized and destroyed and it goes blind. So blinding intelligence is another hyper-dangerous threat. All we have to do is ignite the intelligence and get it working, the intelligence working well and the world will be fine. We have to work hard to do that.

 

The Path To Becoming A Warrior Of The Mind

Begins With This …

 

What we’re doing today, what you’ve been doing, more and more tens of thousands people, millions of people are beginning to think about thinking intelligently which is wonderful. What I’ve just said wouldn’t be true if you did not have a thousand podcast people because people wouldn’t be interested. But I’ve never met anybody who isn’t interested in intelligence as long as it is explained properly.

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Anthony: I do hope that you will write a book on the topic and since you called me a Warrior Of The Mind, I’ve been thinking that that would be an amazing title for a book. So, I don’t know if that will trigger anything, but I think it’s certainly in line with the solution is for people to become a warrior of the mind. I am going to do everything that I can to get the people listening now and the people that will find my website in the future also linked up with what you do.

Tony: Wonderful.

Anthony: I’m so delighted that you gave me the opportunity to do it with an interview between the two of us, a discussion, and that you have already proposed the next one. So let’s definitely get together to talk about that and what more we can do together.

Tony: Let’s do that after the Mind Map Day.

Anthony: Great.

Tony: By then we can talk about the results and the Mind Map Day, the World Mind Map Day will extend into the Mind Map Week, the Mind Map Month and the Mind Map Year.

Anthony: Excellent.

Tony: It’s going to go on until the end of December.

Anthony: Just to let you know, and the listeners know, since I was there, you guys were teaching memory. I was watching you use mind maps and you talked about mind map as well as a bonus. Since then I’ve created at least nineteen and designed more outlines for books than I have time to write over the next ten years, but just the exercise of being able to use that to plan out ideas and books and so forth is just so empowering and I really want as many people as possible to have this skill.

Tony: Welcome to my world Anthony.

Anthony: It’s a wonderful place to be, and you asked if I could hear birds at the beginning and that moment I couldn’t but throughout the interview, birds have been audible and they are going to be in the interview. I hope everybody enjoys that as well. We talked about nightmares and I said it’s not always paradise but quite frankly, it sounds like it is always paradise where you are.

Tony: We do live in paradise.

The post Tony Buzan On The Paradise Of Multiple Intelligences appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

Improve Your Memory And Concentration With Creativity

[image error]Do you struggle with concentration and memory?

Maybe even because you’ve been labeled with manic depression or A.D.D.?

I hope you don’t have those conditions, but either way, there’s hope for clearing up any and all brain fog from messing up your memory. And it’s great honor that Rob Lawrence, host of Inspirational Creatives Podcast has allowed me to share his interview with me.

In it, we talk about creativity, concentration, musicianship and how all of it ties into living a life of superior memory.

Note: Quite a few things have changed since recording this interview. Olly Richards helped me fix a Spanish pronunciation problem created by the power of mnemonics and there have been a number of Magnetic Memory Method podcast episodes on Music Mnemonics For Guitar And Piano that have shown development and huge promise since recording this talk with Rob.

With all that said, here’s the transcript for this interview to go with the audio. Enjoy and be sure to read more about Rob Lawrence and get subscribed to the Inspirational Creatives Podcast on iTunes!

 

Psychic Brain Surgery

 

Rob: So do I call you Dr. Metivier or Anthony?

Anthony:  Well that’s always a very interesting issue. I really don’t know. I mean get a kick out of being called doctor, and it certainly circulates around but it’s not necessary. My dad gets a kick out of it too. Actually, it’s funny that you mention brain surgery. Because for years and years he didn’t really quite understand what I did in my Ph.D., so he used to call me a brain surgeon, which there are some elements of that involved in what I do. It’s just psychic brain surgery.

Rob: Yeah, there’s some technical accuracy in that. Have you always been interested in memory and imagination?

Anthony: In a roundabout way. I basically wrote my first story that I remember, when I was in grade four. By story, I mean something that had a solid beginning, middle and an end. I had an ability to remember stories, as we all do, and loved to retell stories, tell jokes and retained stories in my mind. I’d often watch a movie and then try to rewrite it from memory. Yeah, I’ve always had this interest from a very young age.

Rob: Stories are a fascinating concept, something that we tell our children and seem to be something that we’ve done since the beginning of time. Do you think we’ve lost our ability to remember in the way that we used to?

 

Why You Have Not “Lost” Your Ability To Remember

 

Anthony: I don’t believe at all that we’ve lost it. But the extent to which we use it has certainly changed.

There is a kind of running myth that back in the day in Ancient Greece and in Matteo Ricci‘s era everybody used these memory techniques that I teach. They all memorized thousands of books and this kind of thing, which isn’t true. I would say that the ratio of people who use memory techniques then and in comparison with now is relatively the same per capita let’s say. It’s really just a growing thing.

We’re in a renaissance of memory techniques right now. It seems to be happening at the precise moment that technology appears to be taking over or our memory needs, which I find deeply fascinating that this renaissance is taking place now at that technological moment. There are reasons to believe that actually technology is expanding our memory abilities rather than diminishing it. That’s a topic to be explored. It’s very conceptual, and I don’t have any hard data behind it but it’s something that I feel is being enabled by technology rather than the common statement that our memories are being eroded by technology.

Rob: That’s fascinating, an absolutely fascinating thought there. So what are the key factors necessary to be able to succeed in improving your memory and using these Magnetic Memory Techniques that you teach?

Anthony: Well there are a number of factors, but it all begins with the desire actually to improve your memory because without that there is nothing to ground it upon.

Lacan, the French psychoanalyst, always said that the fantasy is better than the reality. That’s not exactly true in this case because you use fantasy in order to create reality, but nonetheless, there is an effort involved. A lot of people don’t have the necessary drive in order to get into it.

One of my jobs is to give them that drive. So that’s a key factor there. In many ways, that is what my job is. It is simply to open the door for people, give points of access and points of entry.

Beyond that, there’s the willingness to experiment, which is a key factor, the pleasure in imagination is a key factor and also a kind of wish or desire to have this information and to use it. Because if you’re not going to use it, you can have memorize all the things in the world and it won’t do anything for you.

Memory champions, for example, can memorize thousands of digits that they forget half an hour later, but they have that particular use value in the competition in of itself. It’s always got to have some sort of use and some sort of pay off. The more you can identify with that use and that payoff is, then the more you have that necessary key factor to succeed.

 

Don’t Miss The Motivation Train!

 

Rob: You’re talking about motivation there, and you’re also talking about trying to find ways to get started exploring these techniques.

Anthony: It’s not particular to the field of memory training. All areas need points of access and entry points. With music for example, people who would be perfectly capable of becoming very good musicians don’t get the point access that enables them to enter the kingdom. It could be that they didn’t get the right teacher or they didn’t get enough sleep or enough Cheerios or whatever the case may be.

They just missed that train which is very sad because we all have musical capacities. That really is, I think, one of the key factors of all education is helping people find that entry point, as many as possible, because it’s really sad. We all have the ability to do anything really. We just need the prophets and the leaders who are able to show the way.

Rob: I’d love to come back to that point about music because I’ve heard you’re a musician. Before I do, with your work, what are some of the key access points that you help people with in terms of being out to get a footing on these Magnetic Memory Techniques?

Anthony: Well for me the big thing is the Memory Palace. The reason why I focus on it so specifically and teach so much about it is because it’s not only the fundamental memory technique, but it is the memory technique that you can use all of their memory techniques inside of. If you can get going with that, then you have enabled yourself really to have a success with every other memory technique.

One of the other reasons that I focus on Memory Palace is because everybody knows where their toilet is. Everybody knows where their bed is. Everybody knows where their kitchen is. Because of that innate ability to recall locations with great detail, just conceptually knowing the distance between different areas and where they’re located in space in your home or in your workplace, you can then leverage that power and place information by the sofa or on the desk and recall it at ease by simply mentally going to that location.

That is a major point of entry if you can learn how to use that technique correctly, instantly use it for something that is interesting to you and makes a significant difference to your life. Because so many people encounter memory techniques and they say well memorize your grocery list. Nothing in the world could be more boring than memorizing a grocery list, which is another reason why people don’t find a point of entry.

But when you say memorize the lyrics of your favorite song that somehow evade you are using a path from your sofa to your office desk to your dinner table, well then that’s interesting because you get a great deal of pleasure out of it. Now you can sing along with that song. Now you can annoy your spouse or your friends by singing it over and over again or whatever the case may be. That makes a difference in your life. Those are two points of access, the very specific technique and then how you’re going to use that technique to get a victory, that make you feel good. You see the possibilities for what else you could memorize.

 

Two Kinds Of Memory Palaces … Take Your Pick! 

 

Rob: That’s fascinating. So there is this concept here of Memory Palaces and are they real places or these places that we make up in our minds?

Anthony: You can make them up in your minds or people use video games. There are all kinds of possibilities in what I call virtual Memory Palaces.

I typically do not recommend that people use them at least not at the beginning stage. Yes, you want to ground your Memory Palaces on real locations, places that you’re familiar with and generally places that you have a positive association with. I have worked with people over the years who suffered abuse in a home, and they just keep coming up against those memories when they’re trying to use it as a Memory Palace.

You could use a Memory Palace technique to help cleanse those bad memories, but until that that has taken place it’s really best just to use places with positive associations or at least neutral associations, which is another technique that you can use to have a clinical approach to things so that positive and negative memories don’t really play. For example, high schools have both positive and negative memories. If you can get a neutral approach or a clinical approach, then they’re pretty safe to use and very detailed so that you can get a lot of action out of them.

 

Familiarity Is The Key

 

Rob: Is there an advantage to using places that you already know you know?

Anthony: What you are going to do is actually create a journey through a home, or a school, or a church, or a movie theater or whatever the case may be. You’re going to follow that journey the same way every time.

It’s not exactly like following a movie through your mind, but it’s more like following a play through your mind because you restage it every time. It’s going to be slightly different. But nonetheless, a movie or play, you’re going to move on that journey in the same way.

I mean there’s later techniques were you leap frog around in order to overcome what’s called the forgetting curve but in general you follow that same path just as you would basically follow of the same path from your door to your driveway. I mean you could walk around in circles around your car, but normally you just go from the door to the driveway to the door of your car. Because that is so ubiquitous, so every day and so commonplace, there’s nothing to remember or forget about it.

You just know that intuitively and intentionally because it’s what you would do in real life anyway. Instead of just walking passively alongside the rosebush, now you have a giant clown who is eating your slippers to remind you that they need to go buy new shoes, or to help stimulate a line of poetry, or a foreign language word, or whatever the case may be, you’re actively using that location instead of passively. It’s just something that you pass by every day anyway.

Rob: It sounds to me like something we intuitively do as children when we’re younger and we recount stories. That thought is inspired by something you just said there which is the clown eating the slippers. It’s part of the technique to exaggerate and create these kind of images in our minds.

 

How To Experience Cartoons In Your Mind

 

Anthony: That’s a fundamental part of it. So on top of the journey through a Memory Palace, every place that you want to memorize a target piece of information you create an image in order to encode it. Then when you go along that journey again in your mind you, decode it.

The way that you remember the coding is by making it big, large, bright, vibrant and colorful, and on top of that, including some kind of zany crazy bizarre action. The more that you can focus on doing that, which in the beginning can be a bit of a challenge for some people, but gets very easy very quickly with some exercises and just practice, you can shock yourself into remembering anything.

The more that you have cartoon-like silly engaging actions between characters, like an action with a reaction the way you would have in Wile E. Coyote cartoons with the Road Runner, or Pinky and The Brain or whatever these cartoon characters are. They are actually quite rigorous with one another. One would even say violent, but in a cartoon way, then they’re going to capture the interest of your mind’s eye in the way that a car wreck on the highway causes the rubberneck effect and you have to see it. Then you decode it and you get your target information back. If you do it a sufficient number of times, then you don’t need the image anymore. You have affectively learned and memorized the information and it’s yours.

 

How To Harness The Memory Power Of Emotions

 

Rob: Wow! That’s pretty fascinating. So it sounds to me like these techniques are more objective than they are subjective. What I mean by that is you were talking earlier about positive and negative emotions. I guess one of the assumptions I made automatically before I spoke with you today is that you use some kind of emotional power to help you remember certain things. Would that be an accurate reflection or is it a bit more complicated than that?

Anthony: Technically you’re using an objective process to create subjective experience that relates to an object memory or some piece of information that is a kind of object. It’s a living breathing object. Yes, emotions are involved. I mean if you see your spouse smashing something with a hammer, there’s going to be an emotion involved.

That emotion can be anger. Some of the images involve kissing which can involve romantic elements. You do want an emotional element to it, but you want it objective in the sense that there is a strategy involved. So in the same way that Hugh Grant might not be in love with Drew Barrymore and yet they’re kissing and projecting that emotion, you’re going objectively to create an emotion through deliberately rigging images in your mind.

 

The Real Reasons Why Anyone Can Improve Their Memory

 

Rob: Got it. So is this something that anybody can develop in your experience?

Anthony: Everybody can experience memory improvement. They’re already doing it at some level anyway. So it’s just a matter of understanding how that your imagination works, which is pretty simple and easy to do, then leveraging it and then developing it in certain directions. But even if you don’t develop it, you still have the ability to do this at an intermediate level.

There’s no elementary level to it whatsoever. You can go from intermediate to an advanced level. Anybody can do it. I mean I have podcast interviews on my podcasts with 10‑year-olds, 8‑year-olds who are using these techniques. I have personally trained 88‑year-old individuals and people in their 80s, 70s, 60s and 50s. There’s even very interesting research going on right now by someone in Kasper Bormans who is using the Memory Palace technique to help people with Alzheimer’s remember the names of their family members and getting results with this which is absolutely incredible.

So there are curative properties for people who have brain damage. They’re also using Memory Palace techniques for what’s called chemobrain when cancer patients have to take a lot of chemotherapy and they lose their memory, and they lose general cognitive abilities. So they are getting results with this kind of memory exercise as well. So anybody can do it.

Rob: Wow! That’s pretty incredible and something I was going to ask you about. But it is pretty inspiring to hear that these techniques can be used, or similar techniques to this, can be used to help improve the memory of people that have health conditions, which are affecting their memory. That’s pretty inspirational. What are the common applications that your students tend to use? You’re talking about very young people there and very old people. In your experience, what do people tend to use these Magnetic Memory Methods for?

 

The Most Common Applications Of Memory Techniques

 

Anthony: The biggest application in my personal experience as someone offering these is with foreign language vocabulary and to a certain extent grammar principles. This has been tremendously successful because it’s one of the hugest pain points in the world. People want to learn new languages. They want to improve their own language, but words just don’t stick without either massive amounts of repetition or some kind of technique. There are all kinds of techniques in the world for using your memory to help you better recall words. But there is no specific strategy that was developed just for word retention and recall. So I developed it. I developed it out of my own personal need, shared it and it just became wildly successful because so many other people have that pain point. That’s really the largest part of my training is specifically for the purpose of learning languages.

Rob: So I’m guessing you speak different languages?

Anthony: I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise because I just don’t have any kind of natural ability the way some people do. But of course, some people don’t have a natural ability. They are just using certain techniques in their minds that relate to what I teach, but without a kind of actual apparatus. I never it was very successful despite a deep interest in languages throughout my life.

But being able to build a number of Memory Palaces and put large amounts of vocabulary with a basic understanding of grammar, vocabulary being like a kind of petrol or gas that you put into an engine, and grammar being a kind of engine, then you can get very far very quickly. You just need to add speaking, reading, writing and listening to the mix. Things happen very quickly.

Rob: So can you give me an example of perhaps one of the languages that you’ve begun teach yourself, and can you talk me through how you’ve perhaps memorized the phrase or something like that with these Memory Palaces in mind?

Anthony: One thing that I’ve been developing for some time now but that I really love is Spanish. So imagine you came across the word abuela. Abuela means grandmother, and you wanted to memorize that. There are really not any cognates with English. There’s no relationship grandmother and abuela. So you’ve got to find a point of access.

One thing that you can do is split the words in different pieces. So there’s ab-u-ela. One thing that I like to do is use famous people. So ab reminds me of Abraham Lincoln and ela reminds me of Ella Fitzgerald. I imagine that Abraham Lincoln encounters Ella Fitzgerald dressed as his grandmother and she is saying boo like a ghost.

So now, you have ab-u-ela. You can add abuelo for grandfather just by having some Jell-O or whatever the case may be. Now you’ve got that word and that is on the bed in a Memory Palace that I have. Then just move to the next one, the next one and the next one so that you’re collecting words.

Just imagine that there are a number of words in Spanish that start with “ab.” Abraham Lincoln moves from place to place to place interacting with different other people. You can pick up a lot of words really quickly. Then again, using them in speaking, reading, writing and listening, you’ll encounter them, you’ll hear them, and you’ll use them. Everything is just absolutely fantastic. You might even call it Magnetic.

 

How To Memorize Grammar Concepts Fast

 

Rob: How does it work with grammar without getting into too much detail because I imagine that’s a slightly different ballgame.

Anthony: It is and it isn’t. A lot of grammar has to do with conjugations.

I mean grammar is a big world. One of the things is verb conjugations, which are very difficult for people. So imagine that you create a Memory Palace for say the “to be” verbs. Spanish has two, so let’s just deal with one. You would have ser. For me, I used Hamlet serving desert because ser is in desert.

It’s not a one-to-one correspondence but it works for me. You’re rarely going to find one-to-one correspondences. There are a number of conjugations of “to be” like you are, I am, they are. You have a sufficient number of stops or stations in a Memory Palace and you just see Hamlet helping you remember all of those different conjugations. So ser is to be. Yo soy is I am. Tu eres is you are and so forth.

So yo soy, Hamlet is injecting the cake into a bathtub of soy. Tu eres is this giant statute of Aries and he is throwing the cake at that statue’s face and so on. So that’s one way for verb conjugations. You pick any verb that you and you conjugate them. But you also generally pick up the way that the regular and irregular verb contributions work. So after a while you really don’t need to do that for every verb. You just need the verb.

 

How To Develop Unconscious Competence

 

Rob: I’m guessing that over time through practice that you become unconscious competent at this. I guess the language just starts to come naturally does it?

Anthony: Yeah, especially if you do a kind of alphabetization that I was suggesting because, not in all languages but in many languages, you get a feel for how the structure works. So in German, for example, there are a lot of words that start with ent.

That generally, but almost always, suggests something about the next part of the word. Also with words that start with ber. Whatever follows that generally has something to do with what that ber characterizes about the language. That works in English as well with endings and with some beginnings.

You get a feel for it. You get to a point where you can guess with some accuracy what a word means. Of course all language learning is experimentation, testing. Do you get a result from the use of a word or is it making sense when you read. Of course, words have multiple senses. But language learning, like memory itself, is not a fixed piece of glass. It’s something that is wet and movable. You just go with the flow, and you use memory as a kind of surfboard to navigate through torrid waters.

Mnemonics for Music Memory Hacks In Development

 

Rob: Got it. I’d like to turn our conversation towards creativity, and come back to this point about music and appreciate that you’re a musician. How long have you been a musician? Have you been a musician your whole life?

Anthony: I played guitar in my dad’s lap. It is one of those classic images where the father is helping you press down your fingers on the guitar.

After that, it’s kind of a long story, but when I got to band class in grade six they didn’t want to let me into band class because I didn’t pass the proper tests. I persisted anyway even though I was tone deaf or whatever those tests were that they had. I persisted. I wanted to play bass guitar and they said you can’t. We’re not going to buy an amplifier for the class just so you can play bass guitar.

I said well what’s the next closest thing and they said trombone. I went with it. Then I played trombone until I got grade nine, and I was able to finally able to get a bass. Then I just started in bands and went from there. I ultimately wound up playing in a band in Germany and going on tour and having lots and lots of fun as a result. Bass has always been my thing, but I’ve also played sitar, flute, banjo, a bit of piano and a little flute that I got in Prague once upon a time.

Rob: I read, I think it was on Amazon actually, that you were memorizing Bach’s compositions on cello. Can you describe to me a bit about how your methods apply to creative endeavors, for example, playing or more writing music?

Anthony: I’m learning the Bach cello pieces on bass guitar for performance on bass guitar. One of the things that really help is if you are able to create an image for each string.

So E is for Ernie. A is for out Al Pacino and so forth.

Then you can have each fret have a sound attached to it or an image. There’s something called the Major Method where each number is a sound. So 0 is “sa,” 1 is “ta” or “da,” 2 is “na,” and so forth up until 9. Then you can create combinations. So if something where at the twelfth fret, for instance, that would be tan because 1 is “T” or “D”, and 2 is “N”. You don’t even have to be as specific as the string if you don’t want to.

But if you know something’s on the twelve fret, and it’s on the E string, then that is Ernie getting a tan. Or it’s Al Pacino getting a tan. It’s just a quick thing where you can look at a piece of sheet music and you can navigate quite quickly and establish not needing to look at the sheet music and not really needing as much dedicated practice looking back and forth, closing your eyes, playing, and looking back and forth.

It really helps. But you need the basis first. If you are trying to do this while you’re learning the memory techniques, then it probably would be more of a barrier than anything, or if you were trying to use it while you’re learning music it would probably be more of the barrier than anything. But if you have both of those things in combination, then it’s a beautiful thing.

 

The Real Secret Of A Solid Memory Is Sleep

 

Rob:  So get some music theory first, learn the memory techniques, then try and put the two together.

Anthony: Basically, but I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from trying to do both at the same time. My feeling is that having learned music myself and having learned to do dedicated practice playing with that rote learning style, I can see that they would jar with each other.

Rob:  Yeah and how reliable have you found these techniques in terms of your music and being able to memorize such compositions?

Anthony: Well I’d say that it’s basically an 88 to 98 percent success rate. A lot has to do with how tired one is, how well fed one is, how much the bodily needs are taken care of so they can use your attention, which is going to be true one way or the other. Also, it has to do with motivation and intensity. When I was playing, I just came back to Germany from Canada and I needed to be prepared to go on the road with The Outside.

Rob: The band.

Anthony: There wasn’t a whole lot of time for me to think F, G sharp and all that stuff, and try and get it. I just needed to know that those were the notes and as quickly as possible. So it really helped in that in that case rather than feeling around. Plus we were tuned in C#, and that doesn’t really go with my ears that well. I really needed to know what the notes were, I couldn’t hear them as well, and as I mentioned, I sort of have had historically a difficult time with learning by ear. It’s really helped me out to pick up things fast that way. It also helps build concentration.

 

The Bare Minimum Time Investment In

Memory Techniques You Need To Make

 

Rob: So for somebody very new to these techniques, how long would it take you to start learning and to start implementing them and getting results?

Anthony: Well you really could be pretty well master level by the end of the day if you want to.

Rob:Wow!

Anthony: This is this is well known. There have been all kinds of people. In the UK there is Mark Channon who used to have a TV show. He would have regular people learn these techniques, perhaps not in a day, but over a week, and then they would go on his show.

They would compete against taxi drivers with the knowledge. They would do better than taxi drivers who have been on the streets for twenty years reciting routes from their minds after a week’s training or so. It’s really not rocket science.

It’s just actually wanting to learn the memory techniques, wanting to use them and having a good instructional basis upon which you can learn them. That’s really ultimately the problem. Because people just don’t find the right teacher, and there’s all kinds of people who are the right teacher. You just kind of need to read multiple books sometimes, or take multiple trainings in order to get it, but you can get it. Once you’ve gotten it, it happens real fast. Most of my people are ready to go within two to five hours and get great results.

 

How To Overcome Memory Challenges

 

Rob: Amazing! What are the common challenges that people new to these memory techniques face in your experience?

Anthony: One of the challenges with respect to how I teach them is with getting enough Memory Palaces. People feel that they don’t have enough because one just won’t do it.

You really need at least two dozen Memory Palaces for the kind of language acquisition method that I teach. But unfortunately, people feel a kind of Memory Palace scarcity. I try my best to remind them that everybody has been to more than one school, or at least most of us have been. There are shopping malls all over the place. There are stores all over the place, restaurants, cafes, etc. You just need to go out in the world and you’ll find more than enough Memory Palaces.

To this day there are Memory Palaces on my street that I haven’t had a need of, but if I ever am I’m running on street screaming because aliens are attacking, and I need some special formula to create a death ray gun for them, there’s a bakery that I’ve never been in, and I’m going to go use it.

To me it’s a non-issue but people do struggle with that. Then the other thing has everything to do with are they relaxed. That’s one of the hugest barriers to creativity. I always include a module on using relaxation techniques. Because the mind wants to create barriers, it wants to say this doesn’t work. It wants to say I’m not creative. It wants to say that I don’t have an imagination. It’s wants to say I’m not visual. The ego comes up again and again and again. Relaxation is a very key tool for just overcoming the voice that says this is impossible. That has helped a lot of people.

 

Why Relaxation Solves All Struggles With Mnemonics

 

Rob: That’s really interesting you say that because about the relaxation techniques there, and the mind creating barriers. I think there is a whole conversation in itself that we could have there. You mentioned earlier health and well-being. How do these methods help to improve concentration and creativity?

Anthony: Well they are fantastic. I mean they saved my life because I was in grad school and I couldn’t concentrate.

I still have concentration issues because of a medical condition, which is bipolar disorder. I had to take a lot of lithium at that time. It was just unbelievable the cement that was in my head. I was responsible for very technical French philosophy and literary theory. It just wasn’t getting in.

That’s when I really discovered these systematic memory techniques and started to use them. What I found is that it was irrelevant how good or bad a day I was having, because they were grounded on that relationship between where my coach was and where my cupboard with cookies was.

It just didn’t matter what my mood was. It didn’t matter how sick I was. It didn’t matter how healthy I was. I could just recall the information because I could lean upon the simple architecture of my house.

This new level of focus and concentration happens for all kinds of people. They find that this is reliable regardless of how they feel. Because you learn to concentrate differently, and like I said, you lean upon leverage what you what you already know.

That’s the basis of all memory techniques because you’re using where you are already know. It helps improve concentration simply by using what you are already concentrating on, and then just amping that up a little bit.

Rob: How did you discover these Magnetic Memory Methods?

Anthony: I’m not aware that I was aware of them before that I needed them. I don’t have any distinct memory of knowing about memory championships or memory techniques.

What had happened, as I mentioned, I was in this really deep clinical depression, having to take these medicines I was unfamiliar with, and completely thrown into a storm because of it, not only from the condition that required the pills, but the pills that address the condition.

I was avoiding life basically. I was going back to an older love of mine, which are card tricks. I found that, as many people do, I could concentrate just fine on something that pleased me. You don’t get far in advanced card tricks before you encounter the holy grail of memorizing a deck of cards.

There are two types in magic. There is the kind where you make it appear like you have memorized a deck of cards. Then there is the kind where you actually have memorized the deck of cards. There’s a third kind where you have memorized a stack, which is a preordered arrangement. It also makes it appear that you have memorized the whole deck but you have actually memorized just a portion of it.

Now I got fascinated with the idea of memorizing the whole deck because I really like to do advanced magic tricks. As it turned out, what I thought was impossible was incredibly easy.

I learned card memorization and from there I never really looked back at it again as a form of study. I just started using it. I saw instantly how I could apply that to my graduate studies. Then years later, I saw instantly how that I could apply it to learning a language.

I also used it to learn Biblical Hebrew, which was part of my graduate studies and needing to show proficiency in another language.

But it wasn’t really something you could become fluent in, Biblical Hebrew. So it was some time later when I was in Germany. I thought wow if only I could find a way to use these techniques to get a lot of speed going for myself with German because I love this language and I want to be able to speak it.

One day it came to me, I was sitting on the porch (a favorite place for concentration), and I thought what if I had a Memory Palace for every single letter of the alphabet. That’s where it all began. That was where my first book began. Sometime after that, when I was teaching some students how to do this, and they said oh you have to write this down for us. So I did and then that became the first book. That’s basically the journey. It’s just been incredible. But it all came from deep, deep need. It really did save my life. It turned things around in a big way.

 

Why Memory Techniques Improve Everything In Life

 

Rob: Yeah and how’s it improved your life in terms of you were talking earlier about your bipolar. How has this improved your life in that aspect?

Anthony: Well it’s a confidence thing in many ways. It’s reported often the frustration with feeling better, and probably better said feeling like a normal person, because you can feel pretty good when you bipolar disorder.

But feeling better in terms of being able to contribute to society and maintain a normal life from lithium, but the cost is a certain zombie effect and certain straight-line nothingness.

Also, this poor concentration and sludge in the mind, and also some of the antidepressants that go along with that, or the antipsychotic medications that go along with that also do devastating things to your personality. I managed to get onto a different medication altogether called Lamictal or lamotrigine that is for people with epilepsy but it also helps maintain mood.

That has limited those side effects, but they’re still there from the condition itself. These techniques are amazing in terms of the confidence. Because I know no matter what mood I’m in, I can walk into a place and if I need to, I can not only recite some poetry, but I can tell you what page it’s on.

That’s an incredibly empowering thing. It’s not necessarily as fast as I would like it sometimes because I still have to access these images and so forth, but it is there. As long as I’m relaxed, I am 100 percent confident that I can do it. Spring is a really bad time, but I’m going to be presenting at the polyglot conference in May in Berlin, and I’m going to do it basically from memory. They require that I have a PowerPoint presentation, which is a bit sad.

Nonetheless, I know that no matter how turbulent the spring is for me, I’m going to be able to go there and do that speech. That’s incredibly empowering. There are other things. I mean just being able to memorize a Buddhist meditation ritual, which incidentally ancient Buddhist rituals seem to have used something like a Memory Palace technique in and of themselves.

That’s great. It was a path for me into meditation. I’m not really spiritual in the sense of beliefs or anything like that, but spiritual in the sense of taking care of myself and connecting with nature and meditating and all of these things. That came from memory and developing approaches where there is a clear enough state of mind to use them at their highest possible abilities. I’m really grateful for memory and to memory for introducing me to all those different areas.

Rob: How different is your life now compared to before you knew about these men techniques and developing these memory techniques?

Anthony: I’m a lot less stressed out, and I’m much more creative. I was always creative, but the creative capacities have increased incredibly. Some of that is due to the fact that I write. I’ve written several novels. You just simply can’t get help but get more creative when you continuously write.

Often when you have these burned out periods where you feel like you’re not being creative at all and everything is off, and when you look back, they are the most creative periods of all.

But memory has really helped with that because one cool thing that happens is that I can remember what I’ve written a lot better, which I never used to be able to do. I used to have to go and look back. What was that character’s name? What were they wearing? What town were they in and so forth?

But with improved concentration, I’m able to manage my own stories a lot better, which is really great, the metaphors and turns of phrase that characters use. It doesn’t have to be fiction writing either. You can memorize copywriting headlines, for example. You can have a cheat sheet, a crib file, or a swipe file in your head, and that really helps with writing headlines or writing sales letters. It’s just fantastic. That’s one very practical application.

 

The Future Of Memory Techniques For

Concentration And Creativity 

 

Rob: Fantastic. I’m losing track of time actually talking with you here. What’s the most exciting aspect of your work for you right now?

Anthony:Well, really, it is when people who have joined the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass or read one of my books email me and they say I was really skeptical about this. I didn’t think it was going to work. Now I’ve got two hundred words in my head.

People have reported much more than that. They use very specific figures like 70 percent more fluency. Some guy wrote me a couple weeks ago and it said thanks for the donuts in the subject line. He had added another notch to his belt because he bet his coworkers that he could memorize some extraordinarily dry codes that have to do with hookup parts for RVs or something like this in the United States, and he bet them donuts that he could.

I don’t think that’s good for his health, but nonetheless, it’s an absolute demonstration of what’s possible. I love, not just the actual accomplishments, what it has done for the people and their confidence. What it has done in their ability to take that now and apply it to any goal that they want to achieve.

You just hear it when I speak to them over Skype. You can see it in their emails with the exclamation marks and the all caps and just the phrasing and the excitement in how that they write about it. You know that they have been transformed and that is the most exciting thing is transformation. Also, knowing that it’s not short term is that if they want to continue using these techniques it just gets better and better and better from here and there really no ceiling to it. That’s really the best thing of all.

Rob: Yeah, that’s pretty inspirational actually. Just hearing how it transforms people’s lives in that way and how it can help them with their work. I can think of multiple ways it could just make your life more efficient and more enjoyable in the sense. What has inspired you most recently?

Anthony: One of the things that has really inspired me, even though I have left the band that I was playing in, is just watching the development of how that they are constantly getting gigs, constantly out on the road and promoting the new album and making videos. Also, bass players and guitarists have a special connection.

Sergio Klein is the guitarist at The Outside, and just watching him develop as a teacher. He’s moving into the online field where he’s making videos and putting a course together about arpeggios. Just watching him also learn marketing and some of the packaging that you need to together in order to offer trainings to the world is just really inspiring because he’s taken to it in an extraordinary way. I know that he is such an amazing teacher. He’s such an amazing guitarist as well.

He recently joined Criminal, which is a great South American medal band. He’s just accomplishing his dream. He told me something so extraordinary. He went played with them in a festival in Spain. He said that for the first time in a long time he came home with money, which you know is just awesome. He was in London also recording with them. He doesn’t have to pay to go there. It’s just a real testament and an acknowledgment of his skills as a guitarist. I really see a great future for him.

 

Where Preparation Meets Opportunity, There Is No Ceiling

 

Rob: They say success is preparation plus opportunity. You mentioned developing marketing online products, which is something I know you do. How has that aspect of the journey been for you?

Anthony: It’s been great. I mean that’s what I do. I don’t have a job or anything like that. I had to learn it and have to experiment. Every day is an experimentation and in one way or the other. Being able to have multiple levels of trainings available for people has been great because there are so many different learning styles. I have audio books, Kindle books, paper books and video courses. The video courses contain audio. Basically, being able to serve a wide spectrum of learning styles is really incredible and helps spread that reach much farther than it would go if it were just a book. That’s really great.

Rob: What’s next for you? What are you working on right now?

Anthony: Well I’m putting together some new video courses. One of the things that I’ve experimented with that I didn’t think was going to be as successful as it was, is to go and make video courses about older books on memory that are in the public domain.

I started with Aristotle. I thought, oh this is just for me it’s not going to be something that is anything for anybody else but I want to do it anyway because I love Aristotle’s essay on memory. So I’ll make a video course about it and see what happens. It was a wild success. I had never launched a course that did more business than any of my others on the first week. It was just unbelievable.

I’m going to continue making these little mini courses about some of the ancient writings on memory and keep doing that because that’s obviously of interest to people. Of course, I’m able when working with Aristotle’s essay on memory I’m able also to talk about Plato on memory and different aspects of the philosophy that go along with that.

So in other words, I have never been able to use my Ph.D. much. As a professor, I did have a couple gigs here and there and a teaching research grant. But I sort of got off that track. Now through video teaching I can use a memory as the basis for teaching philosophy in the things that I trained for.

That’s what’s coming up next, more of that and more memory training. I have endless amounts of work that I can do. I have a mastermind group where I’m starting to do monthly webinars just for the people who belong to that and go really deep into many of these areas that aren’t in any memory training books and extend out into other areas where memory touches our lives which just about everything. So I got my life’s work now. It’s just a matter of what am I going to do next.

Rob: Fascinating. That’s fantastic. You mentioned Aristotle. Have you read Brian Clark’s post about Aristotle and writing?

Anthony: No, but I’ve got to look it up!

Rob: I read it last night and I thought it was quite good.

Anthony: Yeah, I’m looking it up. Aristotle’s Top Three Tips For Blogging?

Rob: That’s it. Yeah, Top Three Tips For Blogging. That’s was the one. For anyone that’s interested, where’s the best place for them to be able to find out more about you and your work?

Anthony:  Well the best thing is go to the special video course I have for you.

Rob:  Great. Well thank you so much for your time today Anthony. It’s been absolutely fascinating to speak with you.

Anthony: Thank you very much for having me. Let me know if you ever need help with your memory.

The post Improve Your Memory And Concentration With Creativity appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

Serotonin: The Truth You Need For Memory Improvement

[image error]You’ve heard people throw the word serotonin around, right?

But do you know what serotonin is and how it connects with the quality of your memory?

Well, if you want to experience a better life, it’s time to pay attention.

Serotonin is not only essential to having healthy memory abilities. It also helps you feel good, sleep better and works magic on your mood when you’re feeling down.

In fact, as a neurotransmitter derived from tryptophan …

 

Serotonin May Be The Most Important

Anti-Depressant In The World!

 

Actually, there’s a lot of controversy about whether or not serotonin levels create depression. It’s only known that many people with depression show low levels of this chemical.

But here’s the real question:

How can you actually use the information you’re about to read?

Easy: If you can get your serotonin in order, you’ll not only feel better, but you might not need SSRIs and whatever other pills you’ve been taking to regulate your mood. I’ve taken a lot of those pills myself, and although none of what you’ll read in this post should be taken as medical advice …

I can’t emphasize this enough:

 

Healthy Serotonin Levels = Better Learning And Memory

 

Why?

Because there are seven distinct receptors with different densities. When things get messed up with your serotonin, you’re much more likely to experience the aging of your memory and fall into risk for Alzheimer’s and other issues.

In order to understand exactly how serotonin is connected with memory, we need to look at how it interacts with other neurotransmitters. These include:

Acetylcholine
Dopamine
Glutamate
y-aminobutyric acid (GABA)

Basically, all of these elements hang together and require precious balancing in order for you to be able to learn and remember.

When it comes to serotonin, scientists have found that by using serotonin reuptake inhibitors like alaproclate and oxotremorine, they can improve memory retrieval. Moreover, its believed that with more research, they’ll be able to use related chemicals to suppress the retrieval of addiction-primed memories.

 

Sounds Like A Mouthful, Right? 

 

It’s actually easy to understand:

When it becomes possible to treat addiction-associated memories, that drug addicts might experience decreased cravings. That means fewer destructive behaviors to themselves and others in society.

The reason serotonin plays such a huge role in this area of memory is that its connection to different receptors involve reward-based learning, something that can be helpful, so long as negative drugs like tobacco aren’t involved. (By the way, stop smoking.)

But it’s not just all about addiction memory. Serotonin is also involved in:

 

Boosting Spatial Memory 

 

If you’re serotonin levels are in check, you have much better chances of remembering locations and the relative distance between objects. This means that you can use a new place you visit as a Memory Palace with greater ease.

 

Mastering Emotional Memory

 

It’s well known that we tend to remember things with greater accuracy and vividness when emotions are involved. But if you’re low on serotonin, you might not be experiencing emotions properly.

Lower emotional capacity also means that you may not be paying attention properly. You cannot encode information into memory that you haven’t registered either in part or whole.

This explains why depression and other mental illnesses are so devastating for memory, especially since emotions are often so short-lived.

Luckily, however, we can generate emotions at will. By using mnemonics, we can supercharge every piece of information we meet so that it is more memorable. But it sure helps if we have healthy serotonin levels.

 

You Can Forget About Fearful Memory

 

Fear can either create new memories or inhibit their formation. Either way, if your serotonin is out of whack, your brain can’t properly manage fear to any advantage. Having your serotonin out of balance leads to memory errors and contributes to the fearful part of depression. With certain mental illness, for example, you can learn to be afraid when there’s nothing fearful in the environment. Proper serotonin levels can correct this problem, however.

 

But … What Exactly Does Serotonin Do?

 

Research shows that serotonin influences memory by increasing the ability of different neurons to get excited by various kinds of stimulation. Too little response to stumili and you’re depressed. Too much and you might go manic.

Either way, without the maintenance of serotonin, it’s difficult to pay attention, form new memories and learn. Poor serotonin levels messes with memory consolidation. Not being able to consolidate memories can lead to forgetting names, new information you’ve struggled to learn and even entire years of your life.

 

What Interferes With Your Serotonin Levels?

 

Unfortunately, scientists and doctors don’t always know. It can be that brain lesions create issues, along with some of the mysteries that create Alzheimer’s Disease.

What is known with relative certainty is that serotonin levels are linked to the quality of your sleep, diet and fitness.

The problem with the hypothesis that serotonin levels are connected to diet is that serotonin isn’t found in foods.

It is, however, synthesized from tryptophan. This is an amino acid found in many foods, some of which help create a healthy brain and memory.

Salmon is a big one, and it’s hard to go wrong with eating this fish.

Other ways to get more serotonin include exercise, sunlight and creating positivity in your life. Memory friendly activities such as meditation have been shown to help.

Although there is no clear cut route to boosting serotonin, the important thing is to try without the use of pharmaceuticals.

One reason is that taking drugs to feel better might have this positive effect, but it can also make you fee worse. After all, you now need a crutch to function, something that can crush your self-esteem. It shouldn’t, but the stigmatism has harmed me in the past. Plus, now that I’m living free from lamotrigine, I feel better and going solo has prompted me to live a healthier lifestyle overall.

When it comes to light exposure, it’s no secret that I’ve been using the Human Charger. Steeped in controversy though it may be, I’ve noticed a positive effect. I’ve also been switching on the lights I use to make my videos in order to get more light exposure.

You can also get more light when you …

 

Spend More Time Outdoors

 

People used to spend 30-40 hours outside a week. Nowadays, that’s the number of hours people spend inside at work.

Quite frankly, that’s insane and the health of our culture shows it.

Frankly, I believe that becoming an entrepreneur with a strong brand is one of the ways to escape the fate of sitting in an office and helping make someone else rich. As I talk about it in the Self-Improvement Supercharger, I like to walk from cafe to cafe to do my writing, which gives me not only more light, but more air, more exposure to people and much more fitness than I would get sitting at my desk.

I believe it’s the combination that matters: For example, just walking around and getting more light and fitness is helpful. But I don’t think it would be nearly as good without going up to people and asking them for help with German phrases I’m learning. I also go to my friend Max Breckbill’s co-working groups as often as I can to get more exposure to other people for the brain chemical benefits it creates.

And heck, some of them even wind up using memory techniques too after I talk about them.

In sum, people have put a lot of time, money and energy into researching serotonin. Although the link serotonin shares with tryptophan can make it difficult to study, countless experiments have shown that mice and humans alike cope better in life with regulated serotonin levels. They experience less stress, recover from depression with greater speed and remember more with greater accuracy.

Of course, further research is necessary, but my belief is that you are the ultimate scientist. If you’d like to experience better memory, organic brain games might be just what you need.

And when you use Mnemonics And The 7 Eternal Laws Of Memory Improvement, you have the basis for tracking your results.

You don’t have to have your DNA extracted in scientific experiments or undergo the horrors of serotonin depletion in order to experience better memory.

Get more exercise, eat properly, sleep well and use memory techniques. Track your results using some of the tools linked to in this post and you’ll notice an impact.

Bottom line:

Your serotonin levels are important and almost guaranteed to go up if you’ll just take care of these few areas. That means more memory and a better life.

Sounds good to me. How about you?

The post Serotonin: The Truth You Need For Memory Improvement appeared first on Magnetic Memory Method - Memory Improvement Made Easy With Anthony Metivier.

Jonathan Levi On Reducing Your Resistance To Learning

 

[image error]Do You Know Your Learning Duties And Obligations?

 

Put some thought into that question. It could well change our entire life.

Because, yes. YOU are obliged to learn.

And even though learning takes time, energy and can even cost a bundle of bones you’ll never see again …

 

You Cannot Lose When You Learn The Right Ways

Download the MP3 of this episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast and have a blast reading the transcript below. And if you’ve got something to say, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Anthony: This is Anthony Metivier. You’re listening to the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast, coming to you live from Tel Aviv with my good friend Jonathan Levi. Jonathan has been on the show many, many times before. You know him from SuperLearner.

This is a universe where you can learn how to learn faster with greater comprehension, greater memory of what it is that you want to learn. Every time that we speak, he’s been on the Magnetic Memory Podcast so many times, it’s just absolutely incredible what I learn. It is incredible what you can learn from Jonathan Levi. We’re going to freewheel it a little bit. We’ve got some background noise and so on.

But it would be a lost opportunity if we didn’t just jump on the fact that we’re together hanging out in Tel Aviv and have a talk about how you can learn and memorize more information, do so in a way that feels great, is a load of fun, reduces stress from your life and just makes everything better so that you can make the world better, which is what this is all about really. What would you say to that?

Jonathan: Yeah, I would say that I really like – I was actually editing a video today from the last time that you were in Tel Aviv and it resonated. You said something that I often say, and I think a lot of people in our very fortunate position to help people and educate people for a living often say.

I think Tony Robbins says it a lot as well. He says you have a unique gift and it is your duty and obligation (we say it in Branding You), it is your duty and obligation to figure out what that gift is a soon as possible and then arm yourself with the tools that allow you to deliver that gift. I think the sooner you do that the more quickly you realize your potential in life then you realize your purpose. I mean it ties all the way back to Viktor Frankl. Like all you need in life to be happy is a purpose, a worthwhile purpose, and then that just sets your trajectory in life of what you’re going to do, skills you’re going to acquire, the things are going to learn about, the people you’re going to be with, it all comes from that purpose.

Anthony: So then riddle me this, if I can quote the old Batman movie. Why is it that some of us know our purpose and some don’t? For those of us that do, what’s like an example from your own life that got you to know your purpose, and how did you take that knowledge of knowing your purpose and turn it essentially into a self-sustaining engine that just drives you towards doing what you’ve accomplished? It’s the fire that burns itself, or you know the burning bush. We’re here in the land the burning bush.

Jonathan: We are in the land of the burning bush.

Anthony: How does that work?

Why You Need To Seek If You Want To Find

 

Jonathan: That’s a tough question. Why do some people know and some people not know? I think the first question is why do some people seek and some people do not seek? I think a lot of people go through their lives not seeking more. I call it the prefix approach when what you really want is the a la carte approach to life.

I think in order to really be seeking and searching for your purpose, your mission in life, you have to take the approach that my life is a la carte in the sense that I can pick and choose from certain things. I can pick and choose if I want to have kids. I can pick and choose if I want to work in an office. I can pick and choose and so on. I think that’s a big component of why people struggle to find their purpose.

 

Why The Cost Of Stability May Be Killing You

 

But I think the other thing is we somehow along the way through the industrial era have kind of all settled on this stability over excitement mentality. A lot of parents raise their kids go get an education, get a good stable job, and that’s wonderful. Stability is great especially if you’re raising a family, but I think we need to get over this mentality that stability comes at the expense of excitement. You can have both. I know a lot of people who have super stable jobs, who are working at a very stable corporate job, and they’re doing their life’s purpose. They’re really excited about what they’re doing. So I reject the idea that you have to give up on a purpose and just go to a 9:00 to 5:00 that you hate.

Anthony: Right. Now let’s make this even more localized to a particular memory subject because a lot of people that say they want to learn a new language right. They think well I work from 9:00 to 5:00. I am with my kids until whatever time late night, I have six hours to sleep, then I get up, and then I go to shave and shower and go to get in the car, and so on and so forth. They have endless reasons why that they can’t not only just spend time learning language, but use the memory techniques that I teach and that you teach in order to be able to get the components of language into memory. Like where do they just begin, given what you said? Like where’s the entry point to getting started and then keeping going so that you have a different mindset for it and actually execution of learning given the situation they’re in?

Jonathan: Learning anything, well learning kind of in the direction of your purpose you mean?

Anthony: Yeah I mean if your purpose is to say you know you need to learn a language in order to fulfill a particular purpose.

The Best Way To Know When

Something Isn’t Right For You

 

 

Jonathan: Sure. So a few different thoughts there. One is I find when you work on things, when you find that right thing, the resistance goes away right. Like you can drag your feet on projects for years, and you and I know we’ve dragged our feet individually on projects. That’s a pretty good indication if you have to like force yourself to do something, it’s a pretty good indication that’s not you’re calling and not your purpose. I think you need to listen and be true to yourself and ask yourself what your motives are to do certain things. With that said, I mean there are pragmatic considerations and concerns around generating time which you know I talk about a lot in my productivity course.

 

Exactly How To Make More Time

Magically Appear In Your Life

 

How do you make time? I think for most people the psychological boundary of busyness and how much time they actually have is much more significant than the actual pragmatic realistic constraints on their time. How many of us waste that twenty minutes waiting for the bus? How many of us waste that time sitting on the bus? How many of us, while our kids are brushing their teeth for school, are sitting there like flipping through Facebook instead of reviewing whatever it is. In your case, memorizing a deck of cards because that’s part of your purpose is empowering people with memory. I think we need to be realistic actually about how busy we are and actually how well we’re using our time. I’m well known for tracking everything I do, and I can tell you on any given day how productive I am in percentages because I track how my time is being spent on my computer.

Once you start doing these things, you start looking at yourself and your life through an optimization mindset. What you discover is quite surprising. Like those five-minute breaks that you spend on Facebook amount to an hour and a half of time, and unless and until you track you have no insight into that. That would be my advice is like be honest with yourself. How busy are you really? The first thing where I was trying to get is like why is it that you’re not making time for these things, because that’s also a good indication. When I decided I want to learn piano, which is part of my mission, right. I want to inspire people to learn anything. I can’t do that if I don’t play musical instruments.

It’s amazing how much time I make Anthony. It’s amazing. Like I put off breakfast some mornings, because I’m just like you know, I’ll have like a quick breakfast and a smoothie, so that I can use my hands to like play piano while I wait for my first call in the morning because I love it, and I’m so passionate about it. And the first thing I wanted to talk to you when you came to Tel Aviv was like dude how are you memorizing this? How can I figure out these chord structures? The night you came, we talked for two and a half hours on the beach about mnemonic techniques for music. That’s a pretty good sign that that’s like serving my purpose and my mission even though I’m not a musician. I’m pretty damn excited about teaching other people and empowering other people to lean learn musical instruments, or whatever.

Anthony: All right, well let’s talk about that because I’d been talking about it on the podcast with John McPhedrine a few weeks ago who has just brilliant ideas about it of his own accord so forth, and I thought you know I am not done with these ideas. I haven’t fully gone through it and everything, but I’m going to get this off my chest because I’m so excited about it. I’m going to do it partially as like a tribute to you, a gift to you.

Jonathan: Thank you.

Anthony: And with deep acknowledgement to John for his contributions to music mnemonics, and also just to get something out that I’ve been thinking about working with and so forth. By the same token, you were yes I get it. You understand exactly where I’m coming from. But at the same time, you are deeply unsatisfied by it, and you said you know, I think it the there has to be a better way kind of thing. So take us through two things. First, you know what is it from a SuperLearner perspective that you’ve been doing, like the top two to three things that have gotten you where you are with music. I sat and watched you play which is amazing. Then what is it you know, either with specific or just general references to what I told you that night, that sort of deeply unsatisfied you, and what you found maybe interesting about it or whatever. I mean just jam on it.

Jonathan: So first, I have to say, I’ve spent so much time with you in the last few days in person, I haven’t listen to the podcast episode. But I feel like I got a pretty good idea based on what you explained to me. There were a few things that I thought were absolutely brilliant like using the major method for notes and stuff like that I think is really clever. Like on the fretboard, I think it’s really clever. It’s a lot of work but then memorizing all the notes on the fretboard is going to be a lot of work. I’ll first say my difficulty, and then I’ll say what I’m doing.

 

The Raw Truth About Methods Versus Systems

 

My difficulty is, and this is at the core of how you and I teach differently, I like systems because I’d rather be 80 percent to 100 percent of the people, and you like methods because you’d rather be 100 percent flexible to 80 percent of the people. I think I cater to an audience who wants to know precisely. Students ask me all the time how often should I pause in making markers or visual symbols, we call markers. How often should I pause? Every paragraph, every two paragraphs, they want exact specific numbers.

The truth is it depends. It depends on you. It depends on your working memory capacity. It depends on what you’re reading obviously. It depends on how long the paragraphs are. But my students seem to want systems, and they want things nailed down very, very specifically. I’m of the belief that you need to know the rules really well before you break them. Like for example, a non-native English speaker could never start a sentence with and, but for Gary Halbert and Anthony Metivier, who have a perfect command of copyrighting an English speaking can, and know how, even though that’s wrong technically.

It’s like you need to know the Magnetic Memory Method really well to break the rules. But I would believe that your approach is make your own rules. It’s a method, not a system. I think that was my difficulty. I mean you’ve seen how I run my business as well. Like everything is a system. We know exactly how many characters are allowed to go into this title, and we know exactly what settings to use on every single blog post we do. We have the exact processes that are never deviated from. I think that would drive some people crazy, but that’s kind of how I operate. It’s the German passport, what can I say.

Here’s what I’ve been doing to accelerate the learning of music. First things first, I needed to do was memorize each of the keys as in the physical keys on the piano. I needed to know what each one of them were. So I came up with a nice little mnemonic technique where each one looks like a certain thing. For example, the “D” is in between two other white keys, which face inward towards it. So that, to me, as someone who speaks Spanish, was “dentro.”

 “Dentro: in between, and the one next to it to the right was “E” which for me is it’s facing backwards into the cluster, “espalda” which literally means back as in physical. You’re back, not backwards and so on and so forth. You know the “F” key is facing forward into a cluster. So that’s “F”, and that’s how I did that, and within you know two or three minutes I could look at any one and know exactly what it was. I mean that’s easy stuff.

I’m using essentially a very similar way that you are to memorize the songs essentially. I’ve been using that with guitar for some time. I’m still trying to figure out a lot of other stuff. I’m doing a lot of like brute force learning. Not just reading music, but also figuring it out on my own, and just understanding like what different intervals sound like. So one of the things we teach in our courses is this idea like brute force learning. A lot of people will just go to a piano tutor, and then just do the piano tutor’s homework. I’m like watching YouTube videos, memorizing songs that I would never be able to read in sheet music to get familiar with the finger movement. I’m writing out sheet music as I hear it. I’m doing all different kinds of multifaceted approaches so that it’s not just me, the book and the piano tutor. It’s a holistic approach to learning.

Anthony: Now how are you doing that systematically though?

Jonathan: That’s a big problem for me I haven’t really conquered. I’m doing it kind of as I feel, and really what I’m doing is I’m using it as a frustration avoidance mechanism. Like when I get really sick of playing Jingle Bells, which is something I can actually read because it’s very easy. Then I go to a really hard song that I know is going to take me about ten seconds to figure out each chord as it’s written, because I haven’t even started learning chords.

That kind of breaks my frustration and creates a new frustration. When I get tired of that, you know maybe in the next session what I’ll do is I’ll just sound something out, or I’ll watch a YouTube video, which just shows me which keys to press. Then later I’ll reverse engineer it by looking at the music. Ironically, it’s not a system. It’s a method, and my method is go until I get frustrated, but if I still want to keep playing, jump from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing so that I am still getting hours, because I get really frustrated super fast playing Jingle Bells a hundred times.

Anthony: Well, the reason why I asked that and it wasn’t meant to be to be a nasty thing to do. One of the things that I think makes us interesting people to follow and listen to is we’re one hundred percent transparent about the things that we do. We’re out there. We’ve got our heart on our sleeves, and one of the things that I always say, when I talk about it being a method and so forth, is I also always say one is the most dangerous number in the world. You need multiple teachers. You need multiple exposure to how people do things in multiple ways. You don’t teach how to learn music yet. But I’m really fascinated about how you think that you could turn what you’re doing, exploring, your mixing system with method and so forth, how you could turn that into a systematic approach that matches what you already teach systematically in SuperLearning.

Jonathan: Well I think the closest thing to a system that I’ve seen is your use of Major Method. Then I really like the idea, I know you’re not huge on PAO (person, action object), but I really like this idea of you know much music is either three fourths time or four fourths common time, so I like this idea of having PAO for three fourths time and PAAO (person, action adjective, object).

How To Make Metaphors Part Of Memorizing Music

 

For example, C D G E, I would have C as PAAO. So C could always be Charles Manson chewing on crunchy capers. If C is the first piece in that, then it would be a Charles Manson. Then the next one is D, which would be David Bowie diving into deep dragons or something like that. Then I would use the diving. Charles Manson diving so on and so forth. Then you just create a visual symbol, which I’m sure your audience knows all about and then you put it into Memory Palaces. Now here’s where you and I differ. Up until that point you and I somewhat agree. You believe that you should vary every single time the P, the A, the O. I say like let me just learn C, D, E, you know A through G, have one PAAO thing.

That’s a system versus a method. So for me it’s always Charles Manson chewing on crunchy capers. So there is your system, and then again, where you and I would differ is I would want to system that says the first verse is always in this corner, and then the chorus is always in a corner of the room, and so on and so forth. The choruses are always, the refrain is always in the bathroom. I’d want something like that, so that if I ever just want to jump in at a certain point in the song, I think that would drive you nuts if I’m not mistaken.

Anthony: Actually, I think that this is a good a good discussion point because I think people misunderstand what I mean by system versus method. Because the kinds of systematic things that you’re talking about, and you know PAO, and I don’t like PAO and all that sort of stuff. It’s not so much that I don’t like PAO, it’s just that like when you’re using major method, major method actually is not a system. It is a method right.

Jonathan: Fair, yes.

Anthony: So when you’re doing something like what you’re talking about, what I think is so exciting, and what my mind leaps on, and I would instantly adopt systematically, is you mentioned Charles Manson and David Bowie. Both of those guys have strong ties to the world of music. So what I would do in a systematic way is say to myself as I’m developing memorizing music, every character comes from the world of music.

Now that’s now you’re getting into semantics whether that’s methodological or systematic. But if you said that it must be someone from the world of music, then you are giving yourself an aid to recall because if you’re searching for something, you instantly already have a hook. It must be someone from the world of music. So who could it be? Well it’s there’s only so many notes in the scale. So there are a lot of systematic things in the Magnetic Memory Method. But why I insist on the methodological thing is because a lot of the training out there comes from people who develop the techniques for competition. The material that you memorize in competition lends itself to systematicity.

Jonathan: Right, it’s always the same competition, the same events and stuff like that.

Anthony: But foreign language learning does not lend itself to systematicity. Especially not when you learn languages online.

Jonathan: That’s fair.

Anthony: There are, as far as I know, no real substantial language learning competitions and that’s because the margin for cheating would be so high because one could pose as not knowing languages.

Jonathan: That and it’s so hard to test actual fluency. You know I mean. It’s hard to define fluency much less test it.

Anthony: I’m glad these things came up because I think that again it just sort of reinforces my pedagogical philosophy that one is the most dangerous number that you will ever know, and you need multiple teachers. That’s why I like to go and study from you, for example, and be around you and study you because you challenge my assumptions and my presuppositions. I grow and I think and I apply and I implement and so forth, and I’ve gotten faster at certain things that I do.

Also, you’ve broken down certain walls of stubbornness against all odds because I’m a cranky professor sometimes. I surprise myself. So I really encourage people who are listening to this you don’t know Jonathan or you know you have come across him, but haven’t dived in and just gotten into the SuperLearner way of doing things, to go and do that. My only caveat being that you implement. Because it doesn’t matter how many people that you study from, if you’re not taking action on what they’re teaching you, then it’s not going to go anywhere. Who is someone that you’ve recently learned something from where you went from this is a concept or an idea or a process and you leapt on it, and then you got a result. What comes to mind?

Jonathan: Wow!

Anthony: I mean maybe there are multiple things.

Jonathan: You put me on the spot there. Let’s think. Someone that I have immediately put something into practice and it is just worked. I am going to give a shout out to our head of marketing, Mr. Steven Pratley because I wrote out this whole webinar thing. I wanted to host a webinar or for my audience to educate them.

Basically, my goal is to reach a million people if your audience doesn’t know. I want to teach a million people how to learn more effectively. One of the best ways to do that and still be able to pay your bills is do a free one hour webinar which teaches them you know a lot of the basics and gets them up and running. I can get that in front of a million people and then at the end you offer them to join your premium training so I can also afford to advertise and send that out to a million people. I’d written like these slides. Steven was like look, this is good, but let me show you this webinar that, I think it was like Frank Kern did, one of the folks that you admire so much.

He sends me this thing, and I just read through it I’m like whoa. This goes through, you as a story consultant will love, the whole story. Why this works this way and how this works this way and it’s not you know that the hero’s journey. It’s brilliant. I put it in a place. The next day I just wrote out all the slides and boom, boom, boom, and I think we’re going to be delivering a similar version of that to your audience very shortly here. Boy, did it work. People were in the chat. They were going nuts and they really appreciated it so much more than they would have if it were just my boring presentation. Like here are the top three tips that you could – so it worked really well. We were very fortunate to have a few people join also our premium training and they’ve been enjoying it really well because they’ve had this nice primer to get into it. That I think would be the example.

How To Put A Knife In The Heart Of A Memory Expert

 

Anthony: I’m glad that you raise that because one thing that I’m always itching and burning to talk about, and it’s a very uncomfortable subject or at least it’s often received very poorly, and it can lead to something that I find so extraordinarily paradoxical that I can’t quite understand it. It’s this. We are rewarded handsomely for the work that we do. When we do promotions, we do our best to help people understand the value that we offer and to compel them to take action so that they can get the kind of results to lead the lives that they want to lead.

But to lead the lives that they want to lead, how that they want to learn at a higher level and be able to remember more, and do it in ways that are fun and so forth, the strangest things happen. I get multi-paragraph emails of people who say, “You know man, I was just so skeptical of your stuff and it’s there’s certain things about your marketing that just kind of you know rub the wrong way and so forth but I took a chance on this and it’s just unbelievable what happened. You know, in six weeks I memorized a thousand words. I just finally am able to learn in a way that’s fun, and I’m remembering stuff. It’s just changed my life.” On the other hand, emails come in from people, and I’m not going to quote this person, but you know someone swore at me. They basically said in a couple sentences that I’m completely out of my mind. That they hate me they wish that I would go to hell.

Jonathan: That’s pretty offensive language.

Anthony: I don’t want to give that person who may or may not be listening right now some feeling that they have power or whatever, but it puts a knife in my heart. The reason why is because that person obviously needs the same help that the person who succeeded needed. Why is it that some people that come to these webinars that we do, which have different levels of free training based on where you may be at, why is it that instead of turning the channel when it’s not for them, they feel that they have to throw a stone, be filled with hatred and try to destroy as opposed to just turning the channel? Or, taking action and giving something a try. We give these extraordinary guarantees. What’s going on here?

Jonathan: That’s interesting. You know what’s funny is, I often have to be given the advice that I give. I’m going to give you the advice that you give which is great, that’s awesome, because I think it’s Gary Halbert who says, and you introduced me to Gary Halbert, who says if you’re not pissing a couple people off then you’re not being provocative enough. I would love for everyone to love me. I would love to never get an email that says hey you kind of look like a sleaze bag in this video.

But the vast majority of people are getting impacted because it is out there, because I’m telling crazy outrageous stories and stuff like that. I mean also, you can learn so much from those folks I think because it just allows you to tighten up your game. Eventually, you take enough feedback, and the reason we have a master class is because I took enough feedback from people saying this is unclear, this was boring the way you recorded this and that’s constructive feedback I guess. More constructive than like you know you look like a blank and blank in a blank and you probably blank your blank. But you take enough of that feedback, and you become airtight which is pretty cool.

 

The Moral Obligation To Teach Memory Skills

Once You’ve Learned Them

 

 

Anthony: Another reason why I wanted to raise this topic is because I think, and I talk about it all the time, is that if you learn memory techniques and you use them you are morally obligated to teach them to other people.

Jonathan: Agreed.

Anthony: I think that a lot of people would like to be able actually to make a living out of a passion that they have. One thing that Dave Farrow pointed out when he was a guest on the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast, there are a lot of people out there who teach memory techniques who actually aren’t qualified to be teaching them because they haven’t gone out and actually accomplished anything from those memory techniques. I’m not a memory competitor, but I wonder if you would talk a little bit about what you’re feeling is about that. How do you get to a point where you are satisfied that you could teach something that you’ve learned? You should become a SuperLearner to the extent that now it’s time for you to become a super teacher.

Jonathan: Sure. I struggle with this myself because I don’t use a lot of the memory techniques that we teach. I mean I use them but I’m not going up to people and memorizing their credit card numbers and stuff like that, and I don’t even memorize, to be honest, my own credit card numbers because I change credit cards every time there’s like a new offer and it’s just proven to be useless to me. But at the same time, I do memorize. Someone sold me a lock at the store the other day, and he was joking with because he asked what I do. I was like I teach memory.

He’s like okay, I’m taking out of the package. I’m not giving you the manual with the code. He like just flashed it to me, and I still remember it. I’m not going to say it now in case someone steals my bike again. I still remember it because I just created a Major Method system for it. I use the techniques but not maybe as much as I’d like to. I think my approach to that is why not. I should start using them just for giggles to learn music. That’s why I’ve started piano.

To learn languages, I do actually use them quite extensively, but I don’t memorize cards. I think I should. I think I should because I talk about it and I don’t use PAO as much. I think I should because I talk about it. But to answer your question, just to finish on that a little bit actually, but I do speed read quite a bit. I do learn quite aggressively. I do take on learning projects. I’m learning three instruments and two languages right now as we speak. I struggle with the parts of the course that I needed to put in there to be complete. Do I use them enough really to proselytize them?

With that said, I believe in them. I know that they work, and when I do use them, they work extraordinarily well. So even though I don’t have a Memory Palace for every single book I read, I do use spaced repetition and I do highlight in a certain way, which is kind of a SuperLearner way of doing things. When are you good enough to teach these methods? I think actually, and this touches on the brute force learning thing, something taught is something twice learned. One of my best techniques, do you remember what I was reading when we were in Berlin together?

Anthony: I don’t even remember observing what you were reading.

Jonathan: We didn’t have much time for reading, but I was talking your ear off about this book, Sex At Dawn. Well, I’m not even talking someone else’s ear off, but whatever book I’m reading at the time, I’m usually talking people’s ear off about it. I was recently talking to you about Stephen Hawking and like how you mind blowing all this stuff was. I think the same is true of learning memory techniques. Like you not only have an obligation, but you’re highly incentivized to share everything you learn.

I try to talk with you as much as I can about different things that I’m learning. I try to talk with all my friends. We talked about mnemonics for music as I mentioned. The thing is you learn something, you go out that night and you happen to be chatting with friends, share that knowledge with them.

First off, it is way more interesting than talking about Donald Trump or political gossip or whatever. It is way more uplifting than talking about whatever godawful event happened you know across the world in some terrible attack. You’re spreading knowledge, you’re spreading wisdom and you’re reinforcing your own learning.

I would hope that anyone who’s taken my courses or your courses is going around and when people say, “Oh sorry. I forgot your name. I have a terrible memory,” they stop and say, “You don’t have a terrible memory. You don’t know these powerful things called mnemonic techniques.” Then explain because that’s a way more interesting first conversation with someone than what do you do, and where do you live and all that junk that we’re also tired of answering.

Anthony: I’ve certainly had many of those interesting conversations. Without going a long spiel, but give the people listening to this podcast your assessment of what you’ve seen as me being someone who does practice these techniques and an honest one, given you see me make mistakes, you see me correct myself.

Jonathan: Perfectly done. I will give you a glittering testimonial that you really do use this stuff.

Anthony: But I want you to do like also give a portrait of the reality of what you saw.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Anthony: With like the self-correction and how I actually –

Jonathan: Absolutely, you use the techniques. You use them in a different way than I would use them, which is you like to go back and correct and clean up because that provides – I mean there’s merit in doing it both ways. You have these kinds of memorable, almost like slightly awkward situations where mispronounce a vowel and stuff like that, and then after that was memorable right. Once you have this like red face moment, it’s memorable. With certain words, we’ve been like correcting the vowel pronunciations because we don’t have an “A” sound in Hebrew.

I think one thing that I’ve learned from you that’s really great is knowingly or unknowingly you take really good advantage of social pressure in the sense that people ask can you tell them what you do and then you encourage them to challenge you. Tim Ferriss talks about this all the time like setting good stakes. I should probably advertise more often, and I try not to it because I don’t like to be put on the spot too much.

Then you’re walking down the street and six months later you see someone who frankly just didn’t impress you that much or wasn’t that memorable to you, and oh you’re the memory guy. But with that said, maybe I should be taking more advantage of that and I should be because it pushes you to use the techniques and social pressure is kind of a social accountability are kind really powerful things that I could use to improve my practice of memory.

Anthony: I think you do have social pressure working in your favor and in other respects. My observation is, and it’s absolutely incredible to me how that you can with we’re talking about this or that subject, and the detail with which you go through the points that you want to make with names, dates, percentages. You have this laser-like accuracy in the things that you want to talk about, that I don’t have like a mobile Internet thing where I can like check your accuracy or whatever. But it’s so obvious to me that what you’re reciting comes from something not that you’ve just memorized, but you’ve learned it so deeply that you’ve made it part of your knowledge base and that you’re able to report on findings and inform other people from your mind unassisted. This is to me the demonstration that you l walk the walk and you talk that talk.

Jonathan: Thank you, sir. I appreciate that very much.

Anthony: I’m constantly impressed by it. Also just what you do in recorded settings on having your broadcast and so forth, because you refer to the people that you’ve interviewed on your podcast in ways that show me you’ve learned from what you’ve done using your own learning approach.

Jonathan: You know what the craziest thing about it is? I think you can probably testify to this as well or attest to this as well, after a while you become so confident in your memory and your mind becomes so interconnected, I often don’t need to use visual mnemonics anymore.

I often don’t even need to, because my brain is just like a hyper connected network and so like Ben Greenfield tells me something on the show, and I just connected it. I mean I guess maybe deep down intrinsically I do have a specific image that I remember from when he told me why he doesn’t use gyms and he likes to work out of doors. I do have an image for that, but it’s not like I’m sitting there and imagining it. I’m in conversations. I’m generating images as second nature and they’re all just interconnecting to everything that I know.

Ironically, we talked about this the last time we sat down with Jimmy and we recorded. I really want to figure out a way to get my brain tested because I have a theory that just everything has become so interconnected. Now one of the things that I want to talk about it that I want your audience to know is people are always like oh I well I learned Spanish and it pushed the Russian out of my mind. That is so not true. It’s actually the more you use it, the more you have. The more I learn, the more I’m able to learn because I just have so many more connection points. Especially when you’re learning about peripherally related things.

 

The Ultimate Secret Weapon According To Jonathan Levi

 

For example, when I started learning about hormonal balance, I knew more about weightlifting than I did about supplementation, but I was able to fill out clusters of neural networks because the more you learn the more you’re able to learn, and the more you have as a basis. I would attribute I read a ton, I read a proper ton. I talk to a lot of people and I have a lot of conversations. I learn from many different sources, and I think that’s like the secret weapon.

Anthony: Well I know a way to test your brain. I’m going to create a hypothetical, and I want you to answer a question that I know is on a lot of people’s minds. What do I do to get started on a particular thing? Like what’s the first step that I need to take to learning a subject. What I’m going to do in this hypothetical is there’s now something called the Magnetic Memory Method Memory Championships. That memory championship requires that you be able to memorize a deck of cards, and recall the order of that deck of cards that has been randomly shuffled in under twenty seconds. You have six months in order to develop the skill. The prize is $7 billion. I want to know what you’re going to do as the first step in order to enable yourself to win that prize, knowing that you have six months to do it.

Jonathan: Is the prize determined by speed or accuracy or what? Or it is just my ability to do it.

Anthony: Just to keep it simple, anybody who can come and memorize a deck of cards. Now, let me condition this though, because the way it typically works is that they count the time that you spent memorizing. But I want it to be that within twenty seconds you can memorize it and recall it. I know that’s totally hypothetical and totally impossible. Because it does take longer to do the active recall than it does to do the act of memorization, but just imagine that it is possible. That you could just go through a deck in ten seconds and then in another ten seconds you could say the order of what you saw. What is Hour 1 of what a SuperLearner is going to do to tackle this problem in order to win this prize?

Jonathan: I think most people, especially if they read like some of Tim Ferriss’ stuff would be like deconstruct the skill and understand. That would be probably in the first hour of work. The, first, first thing I would do is set goals. I need to know what my goal is, what do I need to be able to do. Then I would try to get in touch with my motivations, because adult learners as Malcolm Knowles taught us in 1955, there you go setting statistics, said that there are five adult learning requirements, and one of them is pressing need. One of them is a good learning environment.

One of them is connection to prior knowledge, but another one is an understanding of why they’re learning what they’re learning. So I would connect with this $7 billion prize and ask is that why I’m doing it, am I doing it for pride or my doing it for whatever. Then I also need to know what do I need to be able to do? What are my deliverables? I would set goals. I would break those goals down into steps. They would be S.M.A.R.T. goals, specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable, timely goals:

By this month, I’ll be doing it one minute. By this month, I’ll be doing it in thirty seconds, so and so forth. Then I get into all the accelerated learning stuff that people know me for. I would talk to you. I would talk to my buddy Nelson Dellis. I would read probably a couple hundred pages of different books on people who’ve done it. I’d read anything Ben Pridmore has come out with. I would not take this approach that many people do of like no, no I’m learning it this way not this way. I would learn it every possible way that I could, and then I would just build a training schedule around my a S.M.A.R.T. goals, and I would just get it done.

Anthony: What would be a compelling reason to do something like that?

Jonathan: For me? It comes down to like authenticity. The reason that I want to start playing around with memorizing cards is like I want to walk the walk to talk the talk. I speed read. So I’m cool teaching speedreading. I use memory techniques. So I’m cool teaching memory techniques, but I’ve taught PAO and I don’t really use it that much. So I want to start using it more, even though I think it’s important to give my audience like the full spectrum.

On my show, I host people who talk about nutritarian eating and not eating too many animal products, and I don’t really believe in that, but I think it’s important to share the spectrum, expose people and let them create their own learning journey. This is something else that that Knowles tells us. You need self-directed learning. It’s important. Kids will just do the homework because the teacher said, but adults will need to kind of feel that they have ownership and agency in the learning process. That’s what I said when I said like an ideal respectful learning environment, a learning environment that respects their autonomous process. I’m starting to melt here.

Anthony: We’re going to hot and we’re going to put this episode to rest, but I really appreciate everything that you’ve said. I think that it’s always empowering to hear your perspective on things. I really appreciate that we could cover so much in this talk. I really hope that you will put time into memorizing cards because I’d love to pow-wow with you on it. I think that if we can walk away on one thing is that the power of your friendships with people has a lot to do with shared terrain and territory. The more you know, the more you can know and that means more people you can know and more people you can connect with, and you are a great connector. I really hope that people will find ways to connect with you by taking up your training as a first point of entry for sure, and getting on your podcast and mailing list and all the things that you do so that they’re learning more and more from you. How can they do that?

Jonathan: We’ll put a link in the show notes, which you know Anthony is part of our ecosystem and stuff like that. If you guys want to support the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast then use his link, and you can check me out. My personal website is www.jle.vi. You can also check me out at Becoming A Superhuman if you want to download some free podcast episodes. Check out the show notes. I’m sure Anthony will have some resources for you guys.

Anthony: We’re going to have a transcript of this. I don’t know if it’s going to be available immediately upon publishing because we’re going to hopefully get this out this week so that is in sync with what I said at the beginning, but thank you for tolerating the background noise. One of the things that I would point out is that we have and enjoy the success that we do because we jump on opportunity and when preparation meets opportunity, there is no ceiling. So until the time that we speak again, keep that in mind, keep it in memory, and keep yourself Magnetic.

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