So to continue memorizing our next five presidents, Polk to Buchanan, we will again link together a crazy sequence of images with the first representing Polk, being associated to your next (3^rd) location or Loci. In my home it would be the Kitchen. This is where we open our third folder containing the next five presidents.

We now need to place an image, which reminds us of Polk, and associate it to my kitchen (in my instance) or to whatever room you are using for your third location.

For Polk I immediately think of Poker and imagine the World Series of Poker taking place smack bang in the middle of my kitchen. I hear the stacking of poker chips running through the fingers of the payers, the shuffling of cards and the banter going on between the players.

Next: Poker to Taylor (Zachary Taylor)

Now we link the Poker game to the image representing the 12^th president, Taylor. This is a no brainer.

Imagine this: The poker game gets a little animated a fight breaks out and in the scuffle for chips, the felt on the table is ripped and they summon a Taylor to come in and stitch it up. See a Taylor lying across the table with needle and thread stitching up the gigantic tear on the table felt.

Next: Taylor, to an image that reminds you of Fillmore. For me I instantly think of the historic San Francisco music venue. There is a TV show named Fillmore, perhaps use a character from that program. If these don’t work for you but you are familiar with the name Fillmore, then you can shorten it to File, and visualize a huge nail File; this will work as long as you are already familiar with the name Fillmore.

Imagine this: If you use a nail File, see the Taylor stand up on the table after completing his needlework and begin filing his nails with a gigantic nail file. He’s proud of his work, after filing his nails he breathes on them and buffs them on his shirt.

Next: The Taylor buffing his nails to Peas (Pierce)

Imagine this: While he is buffing his nails standing on top of the poker table, all the poker players go to the refrigerator and each take out a packet of frozen peas, they open the bags and begin to throw frozen peas at him, shouting at him to get off the table so they can finish their poker game.

Next: Peas to Blue Canon (Buchanan)

Imagine this: The Taylor who is getting pelted by the peas begins to collect them up, jumps off the table and stuffs them down the barrel of a huge Blue Cannon sitting next to the Poker table. He lights the fuse and blasts the kitchen with thousands of frozen peas. Crazy enough for ya?

So, to review. What is sitting in the middle of the kitchen (or your third location)? The Poker table, which gives us our 11^th president, Polk. What happens next? They rip the felt and in comes the Taylor to repair the table, Taylor. Then what does he do? He stands on top of the table and admires his work and buffs his nails with a gigantic File, Fillmore. Next? The poker player’s throw Peas at him, which gives us Pierce and finally, he collects the Peas and shoves them down the barrel of a Blue Cannon and blasts the kitchen with frozen peas, Buchanan.

Just as with the first ten presidents, you need to review these images within the hour then again tomorrow, then review them each time I post another five. By the end you will know all 44 in sequence, a great exercise to show how images need to be formed to take advantage of memory systems. Remember to share with your children.

Funny, unique and interactive in his entertaining conference keynotes and workshops, Bob Gray reveals the untapped potential in each of us. His empowering systems and their many applications in the business world give participants immediate ‘walk away’ value. Book Bob Gray today as your next conference keynote speaker.

We memorize the 1st five presidents by linking them together in a crazy story, with the first president, Washington, associated to your 1st location in your home, I used my downstairs hallway and placed a huge Washing Machine there. If you don’t recall them, please go back and review the 1st five images in the previous post.

The next five presidents, (Quincy Adams to Harrison), will again be linked together in a crazy sequence with the first, Quincy Adams, being associated to your next location or Loci. In my home it would be the Front Living Room. This is where we open our second folder containing the next five presidents.

We now need to place an image, which reminds us of Quincy Adams, and place it smack bang in the middle of the living room. Already being familiar with the name Quincy Adams, all we need is an image with the ‘Q’ sound….a huge Q-tip would do. Go ahead and imagine a gigantic 6′ tall Q-tip standing erect in the middle of your living room (or whatever second location you are using).

Next: Q-tip to the Jackson Five (Andrew Jackson)

Now we link the Q-tip to the image representing the 7th president, Jackson.

Imagine this: Visualize the Jackson Five all hanging onto, and singing into, this gigantic Q-tip as if it were a microphone.

Next: Jackson Five to a Van transporting a huge Bureau (Van Buren)

Imagine this: See the Jackson Five, still holding this gigantic Q-tip, ‘moonwalking’ backwards onto a ramp that leads into the back of a Van. Inside the Van is an old ornate wooden bureau. The Jackson Five sit around the bureau and start opening drawers looking for pens and paper to sign autographs.

Next: The Van containing the Bureau to Harrison Ford and George Harrison (Harrison)

Imagine this: Separating the Jackson Five from the driver is a glass partition; they bang on the partition and yell at the driver to get going, as they are late for a gig. Look who’s in the driver’s seat, it’s Harrison Ford from the Raider’s movie. See him in his Brown leather jacket, bullwhip and revolver in hand, his fedora hat, and look who’s in the passenger seat, it’s George Harrison from the Beatles sitting there strumming his sitar.

Next: The Harrison’s to Steve Tyler (Tyler)

Imagine this: The Harrison’s say, “We can’t go yet until that nut job Steve Tyler gets off the roof of the van.” You hear this loud thumping on the roof, and the roof is starting to buckle in with the weight of Steve Tyler jumping up and down. The inevitable happens and Steve Tyler smashes through the roof and lands on top of the bureau, mic stand in hand with his trademark silk scarf tied to it, he’s singing his heart out.

If you are not familiar with Steve Tyler from Aerosmith, then you can perhaps visualize a Tiler with a work belt and kneepads ’tiling’ over some huge holes in the roof of the van.

So, to review. What is standing erect in the middle of the Living Room? (Our second location). Of course, the Q-tip….Quincy Adams. Who grabs hold of the Q-tip and starts to sing? The Jackson Five….Jackson. Where do they ‘moonwalk’? Into the back of the Van, which contains what? The Bureau….Van Buren. They bang on the glass, who is driving? The Harrison’s….Harrison. They say they can’t go until the nut job is off the roof, Steve Tyler….Tiler.

Just as with the first five presidents, you need to review these images within the hour then again tomorrow, then review them each time I post another five. By the end you will know all 44 in sequence, a great exercise to show how images need to be formed to take advantage of memory systems. Remember to share with your children.

As a Keynote Speakers, a popular exercise in my presentations and workshops is to memorize the US Presidents. This memory tactic is useful for any type of list you may need to recall: product information,  organizational structure, procedures, contact details, etc. I use the US presidents because it’s a fun list that very few people can remember successfully. It is simply an exercise in forming crazy images to stimulate the right side of our brain, the key to remembering! Over the next few posts I thought I would share the images for recalling all 44.

We are going to memorize just five at a time, five for each post until we have them all memorized, (that should earn you a few free drinks in a bar). We will use the ‘Loci’ and ‘Chain’ system combined. The Loci system dates back thousands of years, actually used by Greek scholars, it’s more recently been named the Memory Palace…but it’s the same.

Essentially what we do to memorize 44 presidents is to Chain or Link them together in groups of 5 (4 in the final group) and place each group in 9 ‘Locations’ or Loci we are very familiar with. These Locations act like folders that help keep the packets of memorized information clear. These 9 locations not only have to be very familiar to us, they must also be memorized in order. That is to say, you must be able to take a mental walk from one location to the next in the same exact sequence. Let’s get started…

A perfect location to use for this is your home, or even your place of work. In our home we can utilize the familiarity of the rooms both upstairs and downstairs, and even the front and back yards if necessary, (but not for this exercise). We are able to mentally and logically walk from one room to the next. You can do this by mentally entering your front door and placing your left (or right) hand on the wall and tracing it from room to room. That way you will always ensure you are mentally entering each room in the proper sequence. This is what would happen if I did this in my home:

• Entering the front door my 1^st location would be: Downstairs hallway.
• Tracing my hand on the left wall I find myself in the 2^nd location: Front Living Room.
• My hand would next take me to the 3^rd Location: Kitchen.
• It then takes me to the 4^th Location: Family Room.
• Onto 5^th Location: Laundry Room.
• Onto 6^th Location: Downstairs washroom.
• And I am back to the hallway so I now mentally travel upstairs using the stairway as my 7^th Location.
• My 1^st guest bedroom would be my 8^th Location.
• Exiting her bedroom brings me to the 9^th and final Location the upstairs washroom. Done.

With very little effort I have used my home for 9 locations, things I can easy recall. An advanced method of this is to actually use pieces of furniture or appliances in each room as individual Loci, expanding the list ten or twenty fold. Allowing, in this instance to use the piano, sofa, dining room table, fireplace, lamp, speakers, credenza in my front room alone, then possible another 5 or 6 appliances in the kitchen and so on. Many Guinness Memory Records use this method to recall vast amounts of sequential information like thousand of digits of pi etc. Hundreds of locations or routes are used each with many Loci.

So go ahead and choose a location where you know you can recall 9 rooms or places (Loci). If you live in an apartment and find it difficult to come up with 9 rooms try your place of work, just remember you MUST recall the EXACT order of your journey, you must be able to recall the SAME mental walk from room to room. Each of these 9 Locations will be a folder that contains a remembered sequence. For the sequence to be correct between each folder, you must have the order of Locations correct – so make sure that the order of Locations is natural or obvious.

To make this memorization exercise seem a bit more useful, we’re going to make the five items we wish to remember the first 5 presidents of the United States.

As I have said time and time again, the first important step in creating a new memory is to link or connect what we don’t know (order of Presidents) to something we already know, (rooms in our home). So right now you are familiar with your first Location as you enter your home. Perhaps you’re standing in the hallway. How many windows are there? Is there a closet?  Try to create as detailed a picture as possible. Close your eyes if this will help in your visualization. Here we will memorize our first 5 Presidents in our first of nine folders (Locations). This first folder opens up once you visualize walking through the front door of your home.

Now,  focus your attention on that location. With this image we must associate a washing machine because this represents the first President on our list….Washington. It’s a simple word substitution. We are very visual creatures, until we give ourselves an image to focus on our memory stays in neutral. Although you are familiar with the name Washington, it really does not conjure up an image, whereas an image of a gigantic washing machine does.

However, we must make sure that these images are memorable! Now, you might see an ordinary washing machine in the hallway of your home. The problem, however, is that this is too ordinary. I know it’s not that usual to have a washing machine in your hallway, but it is conceivable. It could have been delivered ready to take to the laundry room, so therefore the image is not that memorable. Imagine, instead, that you are trying to enter your home, but you can’t get through the door. Something is blocking you. That something is a gigantic front-loading washing machine. It’s over ten feet tall! The circular front glass door to the machine where you place the clothes is literally the width of the hallway. You figure the only way in is to smash the front door of the machine. You pick up a huge brick and throw it at the door.

Visualize the door shattering as the brick strikes it. I want you to be able to see the glass breaking in your mind. Hear the glass crack and burst into smithereens. Feel the pieces of broken glass as it hits your face and body. As it is only your imagination, let the sensual imagery be as vivid and lurid as possible.

At this point you are now standing in front of the washing machine, with broken glass everywhere. You are looking at the gaping hole on the front of the machine. You then notice, a huge green apple slowly squeezing itself out of the hole where the glass door was. With a sucking sound it manages to squeeze itself out of the machine and land on the floor in front of you, it’s huge, perhaps two or three feet high. You notice the name ADAM carved out across the apple in huge letters, its Adam’s Apple!

This represents the 2^nd President Adams.

Now, visualize running toward you along the hall way is a little Chef’s son, he’s about 6 or 7 yr.’s old, he’s wearing a Chef’s hat, white Chef’s coat, he has a wooden stirring spoon in his hand, flour on his face. He runs up to the apple, drops the spoon and bends over and with both hands he picks up and cradles the apple in his forearms, its that big! He then takes a huge bite from the apple, hear the crunching sound, he then takes a second bite, again hear the sound, perhaps the juice has squirted on you.

This is our 3^rd President ‘Chef son’ sounds like Jefferson.

Remember these connections must be absurd and ridiculous. That’s what our minds cling to.

See this happening in your minds eye, try and hear the sound of every crunch as he bites into the apple, see him struggling to consume the whole thing.

With little practice you will begin to see how this sort of imaginative connection works. There’s no more need for rote memory work, or constantly repeating things over and over. If you give your imagination some free reign, the images will soon come to you naturally.

At the moment I’m helping you develop those connecting images, but with a little practice and a willingness to loosen up those imagination engines in your head, the connections will come to you almost automatically.

Okay, back to our story.

Next CHEF’S SON to MEDICINE BOTTLE (MADISON)

Now we must link the Chef’s Son to the image used for the fourth President, which happens to be a Medicine Bottle, and we must do it in a crazy and ridiculous manner.

Imagine this:

As the Chef’s son takes his third bite out of the apple he suddenly screams as he has broken a tooth on something inside the apple. He tears it apart and inside this huge apple is an old glass bottle of medicine (sounds like Madison). He uncorks the bottle with his teeth, spits out the cork and then swigs down the whole bottle of medicine.

MEDICINE BOTTLE  to MARILYN MONROE (MONROE)

Imagine this:

After drinking the medicine the small boy winds up like a baseball pitcher and throws the bottle along the hallway, and it hits someone on the head…who is that person? Hear the sound of the glass as it shatters. …I recognize that person, wow; yes it’s Marilyn Monroe in that famous pose where she is preventing her skirt from blowing up over that New York subway grate. That’s the first 5: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe.

OK, now to review. We come home and place the key in our front door but cant completely open the door because something is in the way, what is it, a huge washing machine, out first president: WASHINGTON.

You smash the circular door with a brick and out pours the huge Green Apple, whose name is carved across the apple? Of course ADAMS, our next president.

Running toward you is the small Chef’s Son, who consumes the apple, JEFFERSON. On his third bite he breaks his tooth on what? The Medicine Bottle….MADISON.

He winds up like a baseball pitcher, who does he throw the bottle at? Marilyn MONROE.

In my next post I will share the next 5 presidents, our second folder (Location). I will chain the next five together in a memorable story and you will place the first name to your 2^nd location or room. It’s really that easy!

If you have children share it with them, let them impress their teacher!

Funny, unique and interactive in his entertaining conference keynotes and workshops, Bob Gray reveals the untapped potential in each of us. His empowering systems and their many applications in the business world give participants immediate ‘walk away’ value. Book Bob Gray today as your next conference keynote speaker.

Which of the following numbers is least like the others?

As a conference keynote speaker who speaks on memory,  I have had every brain myth thrown at me at one time or another over the years.

One of the most common is, “I only have so much space in my brain, so I have to save the precious amount left for the important stuff.” It’s as if by learning something new they will have to dump or jettison some other more important stored information.

I actually get this most frequently when I challenge people to learn and develop the skill set of having a ‘trained’ memory. I put it up there with “I just don’t have time.” I think more realistically they are saying “I’m in a comfort zone….leave me alone.” Which is fine, but understand, it has nothing to do with any storage capacity your brain has!

No person exists, or has ever existed, who has come close to using the full potential of the brain.

Let me share with you a couple of statistics I learned many years ago, which to this day remain the most incredible statistics I have ever come across. They both address the absurdness that we ‘fill’ our brains up like a tap filling a water bottle.

The first is from Mark Rosenzweig a pioneer in brain plasticity research. He found that if the brain were fed 100 pieces of data, like a word or image, each second for 100 years, it would barely use up one tenth of its storage capacity!

Here’s my favourite:

Understanding that the brain contains a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000 neurons or nerve cells each of which has the potential to connect or interact with anywhere from 1 to 100,000 other neurons, it was for the longest time believed that the total number of permutations or interactions between these cells was the number 1, followed by 800 noughts! Incredible.

Incredible until you read that Professor Petr Anokhin from Moscow University concluded that this figure was totally underestimated. His new number, if written out in regular size script, (and this blows me away every time I mention it), is:

The number 1, followed by 10.5 million KILOMETERS of figures in length. That’s over 250 times the circumference of the Earth!

You’d probably run out of ink.

So the next time you hear someone say, I’ve only got so much room up there, you can throw them those statistics….if you can remember them that is….

Funny, unique and interactive in his entertaining conference keynotes and workshops, Bob Gray reveals the untapped potential in each of us. His empowering systems and their many applications in the business world give participants immediate ‘walk away’ value. Book Bob Gray today as your next conference keynote speaker.

But, if you are looking to make a real impact on your social life and career this year – and pick up  an easy-to-learn skill along the way – I suggest you make building a better memory one of your top New Year’s resolutions.

It’s a common misconception that you are either born with a great memory or you aren’t. Decades of research and personal experience has shown, however, that this idea just isn’t true. Men and women with poor memory habits can quickly improve, and even people who already have great memory skills can get a lot better. That’s because building a better memory is as much about mental exercise as it is natural ability… anyone can do it, and it doesn’t take as much effort as you might think.

Consider what you get from a better memory:

Better career prospects. The ability to remember names and faces alone can be valuable to managers, professionals, and salespeople. When you add in the fact that most of us have to remember passwords, phone numbers, product details, prices, features, benefits and so much more, building a better memory is one of the most valuable things you can do for your career.

More time in your day. The less time you spend looking up information, searching for misplaced files, or putting off important projects because you can’t recall what you need to know, the more time you have to spend on more important tasks (or just things you actually want to do). Having a great memory is a good way to give yourself more available hours every week.

An improved social life. Learning to associate names and faces is probably the most popular topic in building a better memory, and for good reason: It’s not just invaluable at work, but also in social situations. If you want to have an easier time making and keeping friends, a strong memory can help you.

I meet people from time to time who think that learning about memory must involve lots of headaches, charts, diagrams, people in white coats with pocket protectors and other things designed to bore you to tears. Few things could be further from the truth – getting a better memory isn’t just easy, but its very creative and can be lots of fun! If it weren’t, I wouldn’t have spent so much time learning the simple techniques myself.

If that seems like a small distinction, it isn’t – most of us meet hundreds, and maybe thousands, of people who could help us live better lives in dozens of different ways, if only we could make the right connections and associations at the right times. In other words, if we could recall the name of that great contractor we met, the recommendation for the dentist we got, or who the boss’s nephew was again, more things would tend to go our way.

That’s why it’s important that you make the most of holiday parties this year. It’s a virtual guarantee that you’re going to meet someone you’d like to know, or at least remember, at a later date, but most of us aren’t as strong with names and faces as we would like.

With that in mind, here are some quick tips for remembering the names and faces of people you meet at holiday parties this season:

Make a quick image association. This is one of the easiest memory techniques to learn, and one of the most powerful. When you meet a new person, associate their name with some image in your mind; perhaps they remind you of someone you know or someone famous. Or simply associate them with someone you know or someone famous who has the same name. Hold it firm for a moment or two. The stronger the picture is, emotionally speaking, the easier it will be to recall later.

Remember where you are when you meet someone. If you can recall where you were when you met someone, or who you were with, you stand a much better chance of recalling their name later. So, take a quick mental snapshot of your location and associate it with the new name.

Spell their name. Spelling their name forces you to hear it, most times we don’t actually forget a name, we just don’t remember it in the first place, and this is usually because we don’t hear it.

Say or repeat their name. Use the name once or twice in your initial conversation. Say the person’s name, either out loud in conversation or quietly to yourself. Then, remind yourself again at a later time of their name, and it will likely stick in your memory.

These are only simple techniques, of course, but they work. In my keynotes and workshops, I teach attendees to quickly memorize names and faces in rapid succession, and you can easily learn to do the same. Best of all, if you practice these techniques regularly, the names won’t just stay with you, but you’ll be able to recall them later, and maybe even for years to come.

Imagine how convenient it would be to remember the names, faces, and details of everyone you met at holiday parties, industry events, and social gatherings!

“ Bob Gray has a humorous, entertaining approach to improving memory and other business skills. memoryedge.com ”

Check out the full article by Loren G. Edelstein here.

For a long time, getting this kind of information together, much less remembering it, required a lot of work. You might have to make detailed notes after a conversation, keep a filing system, or even put together a set of index cards with the person’s photo, if you could even find one. That meant that your post-networking event routine could turn into something resembling an FBI profiling chart.

With that kind of hassle involved, it’s no wonder very few people took the time to try. All of that has changed with the rise of social media, however, meaning that there is literally no excuse for not knowing what you should about your most important customers or contacts. With a simple look through someone’s Facebook or LinkedIn profile, for example, you can enhance your memory and remember the details

Enhance your memory with information like:

What their face looks like
The names of their spouse and/or children
Their hobbies and interests
What city or college they come from
What sort of positions or careers they worked at in the past

… and the list could go on and on. While I’m certainly not advising you to engage in cyber stalking, what I am recommending you do is start to build a mental profile – and maybe even a quick set of reminders that you can look over at regular intervals. You can then apply a memory system so you can recall this information quickly and easily. It’s not so difficult to enhance your memory after all.

The benefit? Well, let me put this scenario to you. How often have you bumped into a client outside of a prearranged appointment, where you don’t have the luxury to reacquaint yourself with all their personal information, say at the supermarket, and you find yourself ducking down the next aisle to avoid them because you can’t remember their name? Well, now when this happens, you’ll have the confidence to ask how their spouse is doing, or whether they are still hitting the golf course on the weekends. Doing so makes you seem more sharp and professional and their estimation of you is immediately raised. Recalling important information about a client or customer is after all the foundation of all relationships, and in any client-based business, a good relationship eventually spurs into referrals.

Isn’t that worth the effort for a few minutes a week using social media as an easy info-gathering tool? Try these tips out and enhance your memory.

Bob Gray is a popular keynote speaker and memory expert. You can find out about his speaking availability, rates, and other information by contacting his office directly.

Just to be clear, I don’t mean that there was anything unusual about the audience members themselves; rather, it’s that people have trouble understanding why such a group could use a fun and entertaining keynote presentation about memory improvement. I can see how someone would think that way, but the better question is: Who couldn’t use sharper memory skills?

While salespeople trying to remember names and faces and students attempting to learn new facts are obvious targets for what I do (and in truth, I do a lot of speaking for those groups), virtually anyone can benefit from the kinds of tools I teach.

Here are just a few of the best reasons why a memory keynote would work for you:

Improving your memory is a good way to improve your confidence. The more information you can recall at a moment’s notice, the more confidant you’re going to feel in almost any career situation. And as we all know, simply feeling more confident is a great way to improve your job performance, not to mention the impression other people have of you.

Besides, with a very small number of exceptions, being able to interact with others socially is important to your career development. So, being able to remember names, faces, and important details about a person is a good way to improve relationships with clients, supervisors, and others you’ll find in almost every organization.

Safety measures are ideal for memory training. As with our Sewer and Watermain engineers, along with Ontario’s health and environment, being dependent on these engineers, safety on the job is always a priority, for any safety procedure recalled out of sequence could potentially be fatal. There couldn’t be a more perfect situation to employ the Chain or Link method. Using this memory system, they are able to instill the procedures deeply and keep themselves safer in high-risk situations.

Nearly every job and organization has details to keep track of. You might not know hundreds of clients, but you may well need to remember dozens of product codes or various prices at any given time. The fact of the matter is that, even though the specific details themselves might change, there is always something to know and remember in any career. If it can be recalled without having to look it up, then that saves time and money.

It doesn’t matter what kind of office or setting you work in – or even if you do your best work underground. Enhancing your memory is a great way to improve your career prospects and have an easier time doing your job, and hey, it’s fun too!

Why not contact our office today to find out about Bob Gray’s entertaining memory keynote presentations?