Hey, guys. Ron White, two-time USA memory champion. I have Doug here,
and he has some questions that he wants to ask a memory expert. So we're just going to talk about
some general memory questions and I have no idea what he's going to ask me, but let's see what my
answers are to these memory questions. What initially drew you to studying
memory and its relationship to learning? What initially drew me to studying memory? Well,
so I'm 50 years old right now. I was 18 years old and I was a telemarketer and I was calling people
all day long, "Can we clean your chimney? Can we clean your chimney? Can we clean your chimney?"
It was somewhat of a very torturous job. And I called this guy one day and I said, "Can we clean
your chimney?" And he said, "We don't want our chimney cleaned. We're trying to sell our house.
Thanks for calling." And I said, "Sir, don't hang up the phone. If you're trying to sell your house,
you should have a clean chimney." And he laughed. He said, "I don't know about that, but I do need a
good telemarketer. Do you want to go to work for me? I sell memory training seminars."
And so I started taking down his information and I was 18 years old and my sales manager said, "Hey,
did you just make a sale? You're taking down the information?" And I said, "No, I got a new job.
I'm going to teach memory seminars." And I was really struggling with school back then. I had
a 0.9 GPA at the University of North Texas, and she was like, "Good luck with that. You'll be back
here in two weeks. You teach the memory seminar? That's a joke." And so I met him a few days later.
That was 32 years ago. But I guess the question is is what drew me to it? That's how it happened. But
what drew me to it? I think I liked, in the 1980s, on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, there was
a guy named Harry Lorayne. He was on The Tonight Show 27 times, and he was a memory expert and
a magician. And so in my teenage years, I would watch Harry Lorayne do these magic demonstrations
on The Tonight Show where he would have everybody stand up and he would repeat all their names.
So I was already knowledgeable that there was something called memory training out there,
through The Tonight Show. So I was familiar with it and I really liked two aspects of
it. Number one, the challenge. You're given this information, whether it's a 50-digit number or a
deck of cards or 100 names in an audience, and you are challenged to memorize it. I love challenges,
especially mental challenges. I love that. I love a mental challenge.
So the challenge of it really drew me to memory, but also I would say I enjoy seeing the light bulb
go off in other people's brains. I enjoy teaching somebody the system, a student or a business
person, a business person who's terrified to give a speech and then they learn the system and now
they can give a speech without notes. So I love the challenge that it gives me, especially at 50
years old now. I feel like my brain's slowing down every single day. These challenges are good to
keep my brain engaged. And then the response I see from the people that I get to teach, that's what
drew me to it, and that's how I got introduced. What are the most effective memory techniques that
you would recommend for someone trying to improve their learning skills?
The most effective memory techniques? So in 2009 and '10, I won the USA Memory Championship. In
2009, I think they had the top three lined up and a news reporter came over to us and the news
reporter said, I was the first place person. They went to the third place person or they
went to me first and they said, "How did you do it?" And I said, "Well, I use a technique known
as the mind palace or the memory palace, where I memorized a map of a room and then whatever I want
to memorize, I see on those places, on the pieces of furniture." And the reporter said, "Wow, that's
fascinating." And then went to the next person, the second place person, and she said, "How did
you do it?" And he said, "Well, I memorize a map of a room. I have pieces of furniture numbered,
and then whatever I want to remember, I imagine it as a picture on the furniture."
And she said, "Wow, that's fascinating." I was like, that's exactly what I said. And then she
went to the third guy and she said, "How did you do it?" And he said the exact same thing that
the two of us had said. And the reason I bring that up is when I compete at the World Memory
Championships or the USA Memory Championships, almost every single person is using the mind
palace method. And people who watch my channel, they've seen me describe the mind palace enough
so I won't say what it is other than what I just did, but it is a very effective memory technique.
And one of the reasons it's so effective is you don't have to think. You just have to visualize,
be able to see a room. Other memory techniques, you have to think a little bit. There's a
technique where the number one is run, two is shoe, three is tree, four is something else,
you kind of got to think, okay, what's two a shoe, and then attach whatever you want. That requires a
little bit of thought. The mind palace is very, very rapid. So that's my favorite technique.
Are there daily habits or routines that can enhance one's memory over time?
Are there daily habits or routines that can enhance one's memory over time? Certainly.
The first is good nutrition and exercise. And a dehydrated brain can't focus, so watch your
good nutrition, watch your exercise, take an Omega-3 pill every day. That's a baseline right
there. But it depends on what you want to get good at. Do you want to get good at remembering
names? If that's what you want to get good at, start turning everybody's name into a picture
that you meet. Lisa's the Mona Lisa. Karen is a carrot. Brian is a brain. If you want to get good
at remembering numbers, start turning numbers into a picture. 21 might be a deck of cards.
Five might be a high five. So good nutrition and exercise. Get in the habit of turning things into
a picture. And I'll say one final thing on that, your self talk. Don't tell yourself that you have
a bad memory. Don't tell yourself that you're not a good test taker. Really watch your self talk.
How does memory function change as we age, and are there techniques
particularly effective for older adults? Yes. Oh my gosh. How does memory change as
we age? It does. There is no doubt about this. So I'm 50 years old. I've been teaching memory
seminars since 1991, 32 years. It's crazy. 32 years ago I've been doing this. I can tell a
decline in my processing speed. In 2009, I held the record for the fastest to memorize a deck of
cards in the United States. I'd look through a deck of cards. I did it a minute and 27 seconds,
which at the time was a great record. Since then, it's been shattered. But for me, it's still an
impressive score. But I'm not that fast anymore. Here's what happens. As we age, our processing
speed slows down, how quick we think. There's no question it slows down. Now, you can sort of slow
the slowing down by good nutrition and exercise and controlling your stress. Your body produces
cortisol when you're stressed and stress is going to do damage to your brain over the long term.
Smoking does damage to your brain over the long term. Excessive alcohol does brain over the long
term. So what can a person do as they get older? Watch their diet, watch their good nutrition,
manage their stress, because your processing speed is going to decline as you age. It'll
probably peak in your late 20s to early 30s. Now your strategic thinking skills though, improve
as you age. So a person who is 45 or 50 or 55 is going to have more strategic thinking, or if you
want to call it wisdom, than a person who is 20. So it's like this, our brain speeds go down and
our strategic thinking skills go up, and then you get to be older and you're talking real slow,
but you have a little bit of wisdom and you just can't articulate it like it used to be able to. I
do jujitsu and we call a match a roll. I rolled with an 18-year-old last night. That dude was
faster than me, he was stronger than me, but I had a little bit more strategic thinking. It
all came down to strategy. Now, that ain't going to last forever, but I did okay last night.
What are common challenges people face when trying to improve their memory,
and how can they overcome them? A common challenge that you might encounter
when trying to improve your memory is you don't allow enough time for review. You might try to
memorize something and then you don't review it and you can't remember it, so you get discouraged
and you just quit. That's a common challenge. Another common challenge is they get discouraged
in the initial process of improving their memory. So they want to get good at remembering names,
but they don't want to turn every name into a picture that they meet for the first 100 days.
Well, if you don't turn every person's name you meet or 100 or 200 names into a picture,
which is going to take months of practice, you're not going to get good at names.
So people get discouraged in the initial process because they think, oh, this is too much work.
But what they don't realize is, is once you know Lisa's the Mona Lisa, Karen is a carrot,
Brian is a brain, it's done. I turned Lisa into a picture 32 years ago. I never have to turn
Lisa into a picture again. So if they can get past that initial hurdle of building up this database
of pictures, they will do well in memory. How does sleep impact memory and learning?
Sleep certainly impacts your memory and learning. I think we've all heard that
before you take a test, you should get a good night's sleep. We've all heard that,
and you should. That is true. If you have a big day, get a adequate sleep,
don't pull an all-nighter. But what a lot of people don't realize is, is that let's
say we learned something today. Today I learned about history or whatever. If I get a good sleep
tonight, the night after I learned it, when I wake up tomorrow, I will remember what I
learned the day prior better if I got a good night's sleep the night after I learned it.
Because what happens is, is when you get into the REM stages of sleep,
the six to eight hours, the last two hours, if you sleep eight hours, in that REM sleep,
your mind replays what you learned during the day to kind of help ingrain it in your memory. So if
you can get a good night's sleep after you learn something, your mind will replay it. It's like a
recorder. And then when you wake up, you'll know it better than if you didn't get any sleep.
With the rise of digital technology and constant access to information, how has our memory been
impacted, and are there any techniques or strategies to counteract information overload?
So I get asked this question a lot, and the question could be phrased another
way too. Does all this modern technology hurt our memories? When I was a kid growing up in the '80s,
I could dial my friend's phone numbers right now, that was their phone numbers in 1982.
But you ask me to dial their phone numbers today, the same friends, what's their cell
phone number? I have no idea. So the question could be is technology making us dumber? And I
don't think it is. And here's what I mean by this. And I'm going to get the exact numbers
wrong on this, but here's the overall idea. I shouldn't even say this, because I'm going
to get it wrong, but the general idea, in the year 1900, knowledge was doubling every
10 years. In other words, what we knew about the world would double every 10 years. And then 1920,
it sped up, and then 1930, it sped up. 1940, it sped up. Today, what we know about the world is
doubling in less than an hour. That's how much what we know about the world. It is absolutely
insane. And I'm probably getting the numbers and the minutes wrong on that. So here's what
I'm trying to say. We have so much more now to remember, that I don't think technology is making
us more dumb. I think it's just taking some stuff off of our plate. I mean, back in 1982, how many
email passwords did you have? How many PIN codes did you have? So it's just different stuff now.
For educators, how can they best teach memory techniques to their students and what strategies
work best for young learners versus adults? Well, if you're an educator and you want somebody
to remember what you're teaching them, one of the greatest things that you can do is make it
a story. Tell a story. If you're a history teacher and make it a story. If it's about
a king and a queen, make it like a movie or something. Make it a play and tell them and
make it dramatic instead of just the basic facts. That could engage your students. Maybe ask them
questions as you're talking, what do they think about it? Getting them involved. And of course,
the mind palace, the memory palace. Everybody on this channel is sick of me saying it,
but if you are teaching something and you want your audience to remember it, I recently taught
a class and I wanted them to remember three points of what I said. Just three. That's it.
And the first point was we have to connect with each other. The next one was, we have to,
and I'm pointing to the top of my head for a reason. We have to connect with each other,
we have to be in alignment, and we have to be committed. So I essentially gave them a
mind palace on their body. I said, I want you to imagine we're connecting a power cord on
the top of our head. That's to remember what? Everybody said connect. I said, "I want you
to imagine we're a line in our nose." That's for what? Everybody said alignment. And then I said,
"I want you to imagine you're committed to brushing your teeth." And I said, "What's that
for?" They said commitment. So I took the things that I wanted them to remember, and I gave them a
way to remember it by seeing it on their body. I could have done the same thing by seeing it
around the room, but make stories and keep them engaged to maybe pictures in the mind palace.
Okay, last question. As a memory expert, how do you keep up with the latest research and findings
in the field? And how do you continuously improve your own memory and learning techniques?
How do I keep up with the latest research in the field and how do I always keep improving? I just
try to, what was it Solomon said? There's nothing new under the sun. There is research, science,
medical research being done in memory. And I think that's wonderful. And I do keep up with that to a
limited extent. But you know what I actually like doing? It's almost reversed from that question.
I like reading old memory books, like 2,000 years ago. Cicero had some writings called Ad Herennium,
where he talked about memory. There are people in the 1800s and 1700s, Pick. Dr. Pick was a memory
expert in the 1800s. I love reading his writings. Because I think sometimes some of the things that
they said can get lost in time unless we go back and look at them. So I do try to stay current,
but I also, I really love the old memory. And you know what I love the most about the
old memory books is when I was reading Cicero's writings in Ad Herennium,
he was talking about how to memorize a poem or a quote. And in essence, what he was saying is is
you see an image for a few keywords and then you say the phrase and your mind kind of fills in the
gaps for the words that you didn't memorize. Your brain will naturally fill in the gaps. And that's
something I've been telling people for 30 years. And when I read that book and I saw Cicero write
that 2,000 years ago, I thought we had this connection or something. It was just so cool.
So that's what I like to do. I think there's a lot of stuff in the past that we could look over. And
matter of fact, in the description of this video, I will put a link to some old memory books.
Great. But thanks,
man. So that was Doug and he asked me 10 questions for a memory expert. I had no idea what he was
going to say. But if you like this video and you want to learn more about improving your memory,
click like. Don't forget to subscribe. And by the way, I do have a memory course called Black Belt
Memory. It's the most comprehensive memory course on the market, in my opinion. Click
link down below, and I have a free gift for you. Subscribe, and I'll see you on the next video.