- Hey guys, in this video,
I'm gonna give another overview of an old memory book.
As always, I have an Old Memory Book club and it's free.
You can download a copy of the book
that I'm about to tell you about
in the link in the description.
So click that link and download this book for free,
but watch this video first,
because it's really, really cool.
This book was written in 1894 by B.F. Austin,
Benjamin Fish Austin.
He was a minister and a Canadian educator.
He wrote this book, "Rational Memory Training" and I own it.
It's in my collection, it's one of my old memory books.
And it's really got some good stuff
on improving your memory.
So in this book,
he gives 16 tips
to improving your memory.
And they are really good stuff.
It's less about memory techniques,
as it is more about memory strategy.
And I like that.
Often I teach how to turn numbers into pictures,
or I will teach you how to use the mind palace,
which are techniques.
This is kind of overall strategy or mindset on memory,
which is a little bit different, and I like that.
I have two copies of this book.
One that is 126 years old,
and one that I can hold it and ride it.
So I'm gonna hold this one and ride it.
I wanna read you something kind of funny out of this book.
He's talking about why we should have a good memory.
And he says, "A man cannot carry 'Webster's Unabridged'
"and the 'Encyclopedia Britannica' to the Stock Exchange,
"to the Counting House or to the Drawing House."
He's saying you can't carry a dictionary
or the encyclopedia with you.
Well, today we can, and it's all in our phones.
But there's still great uses for memory
such as remembering names or giving speeches without notes
or remembering things that are important to you.
But I thought that was kind of funny
that he would have no idea that 120 years later,
yeah, you could carry all that with you in your pocket.
You know, in this book too, he talks about, he says,
you know, if somebody, you would never hear somebody say,
"Oh, I have a terrible time telling the truth.
"I have a terrible time at not stealing.
"I just wanna steal all the time."
You would never hear people say that,
but people will all the time say,
"I have a terrible memory,"
as if it's just something that they have to accept.
Like not stealing or lying would be
something they would have to accept.
And I really like how he approached it that way.
It's kind of humorous a little bit.
In the book, he quoted a Reverend,
Reverend Carmen at the time, who said,
"Is there not good ground for the assertion
"that a bad memory is always a defect,
frequently a fault, and sometimes a crime?"
Having a bad memory is a crime.
Kind of taking it to the extreme there.
But he's definitely making the case in this book,
why a good memory is important,
and why you are in control of it.
Then he gives you 16 points to consider
in improving your memory.
The first point that he talks about is he says,
"Good nutrition and exercise is gonna improve your memory."
And that's certainly true.
The more water you drink,
the more hydrated your brain is gonna be.
The better fit you are, the more oxygen goes to your brain.
The more antioxidants you eat, spinach and blueberries,
that's gonna be helpful to your brain.
So he talks about paying attention to your health,
which is certainly true.
The next thing that he talks about is he says,
"Train your senses to be careful
"about observation and notice every detail."
And you know, I would translate this to jujitsu.
When I do jujitsu and I'm watching my coach explain a move,
I'm not really trying to memorize it
using my mind palace (snapping fingers) right away.
I'm looking at him do the, teach the jujitsu move,
and I'm observing it, I'm trying to understand it.
Understand why is he doing what he's doing here
and understand the moves.
And that's such an important part of the memory process.
In this book, he writes, "In the series
"of experiments conducted recently
"in the University of Berlin as we have seen,
"the fact was demonstrated that our chances of remembering
"anything are increased tenfold by thorough comprehension."
So his second tip in this book was comprehend
what you're trying to remember, observe it.
Understand it, think about it.
And that's something that we learned in Isaac Watts's book,
"The Improvement of the Mind" when he said,
"When you learn something, set the book down,
"and teach it to others, or think about it,
"dwell on it, comprehend or understand,
"instead of just strictly trying to memorize."
Point number three, he said, "Deepen your first impressions
"of what you're trying to memorize."
This is going to be falling
under the category of attention or focus.
And the tips that he gives you to improve that are,
"Concentrate thoroughly upon the thought."
Number two, "Exercise the willpower in regard to it."
And what that means is memory is
often a display of willpower.
You're like, "I'm gonna focus on this.
"I am going to focus on this.
"I'm not gonna let my mind drift," and boom, you just do it.
Point number four, he said,
"Figure out if you learn more by sight or by hearing."
And this test that he suggests that you do is
you have a friend write out a list of 10 words,
lets you look at it, take the paper away.
And then you write out the 10 words, see how many you get.
Then have your friend say a list of 10 words,
a different list of 10 words.
Just listen to 'em and then write out the 10,
and see if you remember more by hearing or more by seeing.
Now this is a test that he suggests
this will teach you how you learn.
And I think there is some truth to this.
With that said, I think one thing
that he is overlooking in this is
that when your friend is saying the words,
if you were visualizing them in your mind,
you're still using pictures.
You're just creating the pictures in your mind.
So actually, it may be stronger,
not because you're hearing the words,
but because you have nothing to look at on the paper
and it's forcing your brain to think of the pictures.
So I think that's a point that he didn't
really address in the book there.
The stronger you see images in your mind,
the stronger they're going to be in your memory.
Point number five, he says,
"Give yourself a memory project," which is golden advice.
And it's something that I've always suggested.
But you pick something that's interesting to you
and give yourself a memory project
to force you to work on your memory.
I think that's a great suggestion.
Tip number six, he says,
"Give yourself a time of day where you're gonna do this.
"And remember that part of your time
"is gonna need to be devoted to memory.
"And part of your time is gonna
"need to be devoted to review."
And on this point,
I think it's so important to acknowledge something here.
You may say, "Well, if I can memorize
"five Bible verses a day, then in 20 days,
"I can memorize a hundred Bible verses."
Yes and no, something you're not taking
into consideration here is the review.
If you memorize five today,
and then tomorrow you want to memorize another five,
well, you need to review the previous five
before you add to it.
So on like day four, you've got 20 verses to review
before you add to the next.
Actually, what's gonna happen
to your memory process as you go,
more and more time is going to be
spent in review than memorizing new data.
But you need to allow time for review.
And the more amount of information
you've put in your memory, the more you have to review.
So you may actually, as time goes on,
memorize less and less per day.
And that's something really important to keep in mind
when setting and planning out your goals.
Point number seven, he suggested earlier,
that you figure out how you memorize the best.
He says, "When in the review process,
"find out what type of review works best for you."
And I'm gonna suggest to you this,
that you don't just read the paper again,
but that you see how much you can memorize
without looking at the paper,
and maybe say those things out loud.
Maybe use your cellphone.
Say the information you want to memorize
into your cellphone.
Of course, he didn't give this advice 126 years ago,
but it's something I do today.
I will say the United States Constitution into my cellphone.
Then I'll go drive around in my car
and I'll listen to it as I drive.
That's a method that really helps me.
Point number eight, this is big.
"Make it a goal to comprehend
"or understand everything you're memorizing."
Who wants to be a person that just walks around
and spits out a ton of information and knowledge,
but doesn't understand it?
Plus, when you really understand something,
it's going to help your memory.
They go hand-in-hand.
Point number nine, he says,
"Don't burden your mind with too much tasks
"or try to do too much at a time."
In essence, what he's saying here is
don't try to memorize for five hours straight.
You're gonna become more efficient
if you memorized for a shorter amount of time,
and then reviewed that,
and memorize for another shorter amount of time
and review that, don't try to take on too much.
Point number 10, he says,
"Don't try to force yourself to recall something."
In the review process, if you can't remember what it was,
think about it for a minute.
And if you can't come up with it,
maybe go onto the next one, just skip it.
And then at the end, maybe come back to it.
And if you still can't remember it, well then look it up.
See what the correct the answer is.
Don't try to force it in your memory
because if it's not there, it's not there.
And sometimes you just gotta go back and strengthen it.
Number 11, "Repeatedly call the images into your memory."
In other words, repeatedly think about them.
And every time you think about them, enhance the picture,
make it brighter, make it more colorful,
make it more action, make it more emotion,
add sound to it, but constantly be reviewing.
When you're driving in the car.
When you're sitting on an airplane,
when you're alone in a restaurant, constantly be reviewing.
Number 12, when I read point number 12 in this book,
it was just like, what?
In 1894, B.F. Austin, the author of this book,
wrote, "Trust your memory."
Well, in 2009, I emailed World Memory Champion Ben Pridmore,
and I said, "Ben, how do I get faster
"at memorizing a deck of cards?"
The first line of his email that he replied back to me was,
"Ron, trust your memory."
Ben explained to me in 2009,
that what slows many people down
about memorizing a deck of cards is
as they're memorizing it, they don't trust their memory,
that they have it in their memory.
So they begin to go slower and dwell on it and focus on it.
But if they really kept going and trusted their memory,
they would be surprised that it was
actually in their memory.
Well guess what?
I had no idea, but 116 years prior to that,
B.F. Austin wrote in his book the same thing,
trust your memory, memorize it,
get it in there, and then keep going.
Tip number 13 is a memory exercise.
He says, "Every evening, just think back throughout your day
"and think about everything you did during the day."
When I first started teaching memory seminars in 1991,
one of my mentors was a man named Harold Mangum.
And Harold told me, "Ron, when I go to sleep at night,
"I will just lay in bed and think of everything I did
"during the day, starting at the last thing I did,
"crawling into bed and going all the way backwards.
"And I just think about that until I fall asleep."
B.F. Austin wrote about it in this book.
He says that's a good memory exercise,
trying to see how much you can remember of your day.
Tip number 14, it's similar to 13, but he says,
"Get in the habit of talking to your friends
"and tell 'em about the concerts that you attended
"or the sporting events that you went to,
"or the things in your life, and recall the events,
"and get in the habit of talking with your friends
"about the things in your life,
"and seeing how much about them
"that you can remember in detail."
Tip number 15, it's along the same lines.
He said, "Get yourself a journal."
He was a minister, so he said,
"Write out what you remember
"from that week's sermons at church."
You might just write out what you can remember
from your history lecture, your psychology lecture,
or the business meeting that you attended.
And finally, tip number 16, he says,
"Work on the areas of your memory that aren't good,
"and form exercises to improve 'em."
He said, "If you're not good at names,
"get exercises to create images for names,
"and practice remembering names."
He said, "If you're not good at remembering what you read,
"develop a memory system for that."
And what a great way to segue into my memory system.
So first of all, I'll say this.
These are the 16 points.
If you liked the 16 points, give us a thumbs up.
If you would like to download a copy of this book
written in 1894, click my memory
Old Memory Book club link in the comments,
download it totally for free.
On that website you're gonna see
my Black Belt Memory course.
I encourage you to get my Black Belt Memory course,
you will get a certificate.
You will earn a black belt in memory,
but you will also learn memory systems.
It's gonna help you study for tests, pass exams,
get certifications, remember names and faces,
give speeches without notes, memorize poems.
So download this book.
You'll get it for free in the link,
but also, give me a thumbs up if you liked this video.
Comment down below what old memory books
you would like for me to review.
And I enjoy spending this time with you.
I'll see you on the next video.
Go download a copy of this book.
Link is in the comments.