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My name’s Barry Reitman. I’m the author of Secrets, Tips, and Tricks of a Powerful Memory, which is a book and a 4-CD set. They work well together. You can listen in the car during those wasted hours that you spend commuting to work, or going to school, or wherever it is. And when you get home, you might want to look a little bit more closely. So open up the book. The chapter numbers are the same. And most of the materials is the same. It can work together.

I’ve always had an interest in doing parlor tricks, memory tricks, card tricks. So I was aware of things like how to remember a long list. I wasn’t always very good at it. And then an event happened. April 2008, I was in my office. My best customer called. I do equipment financing. And he said, “Barry, I spoke to my partner, and we want to go ahead with the contract that you and I negotiated yesterday. Right to the penny, the dollars and cents. Everything is fine. Please prepare a contract.”

And I said, “Josh, I’m in a rush. I’m raising out of the office now,” which I was, “and my desk is a mess,” it always is. “Do me a favor. Send an email to my secretary, Roseanne, with exactly those terms and conditions, and dollars and payments and everything else. And I’ll tell her to watch for that email and prepare a contract while I’m gone.”

What I didn’t tell Josh is that I not only didn’t remember the terms and conditions, and dollars amounts that we had negotiated. It was much worse than that. I didn’t remember and could not reconstruct having been on the phone with him the day before. That was my wake up call.

I had to take those few cute little tricks that I knew, and make it into my life using these things, and learning how easy it is to picture things to remember them. That’s what I do. So now, I lecture, I write, I do stage presentations. I teach people how to remember. And I got to tell you, the toughest part of my job is showing them that it’s really easy. Don’t hold back. It’s really easy.

My book, there are other good books. My websites, memoryshock.com, or powerfulmemorysecrets.com. My book, my CDs, and others. Go to Amazon. Take a look at what’s available. Read the reviews. Read the reviews about mine. Read the others. But whatever you do, get started. Because what I guarantee you, what I promise you – this stuff is easy.

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My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of Secrets Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory. And I’d like to discuss very briefly how to remember foreign words and phrases, and in this case of the example I’m about to give you, foods.

There is an Indian restaurant that I really like near my home. And I usually order the same thing, or I usually did order the same thing. But one day the waiter came to the table and he said, “Try something new. There is something that the Chef wants you to try. It’s Merge Gell Freezy [SP].” I tried it, I liked it. I learned that it’s available in most Indian restaurants, but it’s often not on the menu. You have to ask for it. So I have to remember, what was that? Mer- Marig- Merge Gell Freezy. And here’s how I remember it. I was driving to the restaurant. This is my story, I can make it up anyway I want. And I merged into a high-speed lane and a car hit me, I think it was his fault, he thinks it was my fault. Well, the police thought it was my fault. And after this merge accident they put me in jail just for a little while. But it was a very unpleasant experience, I was freezing. After this merge, I went into jail and I was freezing. And I want some of that hot Merge Gell Freezy to warm me up. That’s how I remember foreign words.

My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory,” I’m going to discuss how to remember the planets by size. Let me tell you a Little story. My friend Freddie, kind of a hip guy. You know everything is, “Hey, my man. How you doin’, my man?” And I’m, “Okay, how are you, my man?” We go back and forth like that and one day he said to me, “Hey, my man, I’m about to meet my girlfriend’s parents for the first time.” I said, “That’s very good Freddie.” And he said, “I’m worried. I’m worried for two reasons. She’s told me about her father, he’s a scientist. He knows things, he studies the planets. I don’t know what to say, and I don’t know what to say about my politics because, you know, some parents are kind of tricky. My man, I’m worried. I’m worried, my man.” And I said here’s the answer to both questions, my man. Just say you never even voted, my man. Just say you never even voted, my man.” Just, Jupiter, say, Saturn, you, Uranus, never, Neptune, even, Earth, Voted, Venus, my man, Mars Mercury and there are the planets in order of size.” It works.

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My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips, and Tricks of a Powerful Memory.” I’d like to discuss the question, “What is rote memory?” R-O-T-E. Rote memory is, unfortunately, all that most of us are taught when we’re young. It’s the constant repetition of something to learn what it is. It really doesn’t work well at all, and it is counter productive. Let me tell you a little story. There was an old sea captain, back 150 years ago in the days of the four and five masted sailing ships. He was the most respected sea captain in the entire Mercantile Navy. Everyone really appreciated his knowledge. He had a quirk. The old captain would go to the wall safe in his cabin every single morning, unlock the combination, open the door, take out a piece of paper, read it for a moment, fold it up, put it back, close up the safe and lock it. And for years, for decades, everyone went, “What’s the captain’s secret? What has made him so great?” And one day, the captain died, and everyone, of course, was very sad. He was a beloved sea captain. But the younger officers, they were eager. Now this was their chance to find out the captain’s secret. And all the younger officers raced to his cabin, and the purser had the combination to all the safes on the ship, and he ran over and he opened the safe. And he opened the safe door and took out the piece of paper, and he read, “Port, left; starboard, right.” The captain had learned this, obviously, by rote memory, which means he never learned it at all.

So I’m going to make a suggestion of what should have happened with that old captain his first day on a sailing ship. He was twenty years old. He had just gotten married and his first job as a sailor, and he came on board the ship. But in this version of the story, the older sailors grab him and hold down his left hand on table, and one of them takes a bottle of bring red port wine and pours it all over his left hand. It gets under his brand new wedding band, and it’s all sticky and gummy and ugly, but the port wine on his left hand. Port, left. Had that happened, the captain would never have forgotten, would never have needed his safe for port, left and therefore starboard, right. But here’s the good information. They didn’t have to do that, they didn’t have to hold down his hand, and they didn’t have to pour out that bottle of wine. All they had to do was say, “Hey listen, young man, imagine this. Imagine us holding down your hand and pouring port wine on your left hand and it seeping all around your wedding band. Picture that. If you can picture that, it’s as good as if we had done it. And if you do that, you will never forget port from starboard.” That’s un-rote memory. That’s remembering the right way.

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My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory,” and I’m answering the question now how to remember where you parked. And given the size of shopping malls and other situations, it’s a common question.

Here’s the answer: Most large parking lots have signs. Look up on the top of the lamppost and you’ll see A4, B3, what have you. Make those numbers into a picture related to your car. If you are in section A4; A, apple, 4 – well let’s use a simple rhyming scheme – one, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, close the door. Apple, door. I’m going to take a giant apple in my mind, put it by my open car door, and smash the car door into it. The apple is going to spray juicy, ugly bits of apple all over the inside and outside of my car. Apple, door, A4.
When I’m ready to leave that shopping mall, where’s my car? I’m going to see that. I’m going to see that picture. I use this all the time. Obviously, if there aren’t signs with those markers such as A4, and B3, or whatever else, maybe you’re near a certain store. Just picture yourself driving through the display window of that store. Pick some silly, stupid, manufactured picture. See the picture for a moment: Don’t just say the words. And I guarantee you, you will find your way back to your car.

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My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory,” and I’d like to discuss the question of what happens when something is on the tip of your tongue. It happens to all of us. I’m going to divide this answer into two parts: One is for those things that you never properly memorized, things you never applied any mnemonic system, you never applied a system at all. It’s just something you may have read sometime or a song you might have heard or a picture you may have seen. And what’s happening is there’s a lot of scientific literature about it, indeed. It’s the TOT – tip of tongue syndrome – and you can find thousands and thousands of pages about it.
Technically what’s happening, I can’t tell you. But the bottom line what’s happening is you didn’t really know it well to begin with as a rule. What can you do about it? All kinds of theories, I can only suggest one. If something is on the tip of your tongue, and you can’t spit it out, back away from it, relax a little bit.
Another theory that you’re going to hear about is clench your left fist. Some scientists will say that what that does is stimulate some neurons that are going left wrist to the right side of the brain and all of that material that I’m not really sure about: I’m not a scientist. But I do think that the very act of clenching your fist takes your mind away of that terribly troubling sense of the tip of tongue syndrome and may relieve it. Give it a try. See what works for you.

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My name’s Barry Reitman. I’m the author of Secrets, Tips, and Tricks of a Powerful Memory. And I’d like to discuss the question, “Why can’t I remember what I study?” I will suggest to you that you can’t remember what you study because no one’s ever taught you the right way to remember things. There is a right way and a wrong way. And one hint is just repeating something over and over, or reading the same thing over and over, it is not the right way.

As you go through the rest of the videos in this series, think about how it might apply to the things that you want to study. But just sitting down with a book, and forcing you to read over and over and over is not really studying at all. It’s not productive time.

So why can’t you study? Simply because no one’s ever shown you how before. Go through the techniques in this video series, and you will see an instant increase in the productivity from your study time. Bottom line – less time devoted to study, higher grades in school.

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My name’s Barry Wrightman, author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory,” and I’d like to discuss briefly the difference between short term memory and long term memory. And they can be further be divided. Long term memory, the psychologist will tell you can be divided into explicit and implicit. If you study something and seek to remember it for a long period of time using any of the methods here or that you learned elsewhere, that’s the explicit long term memory that you develop. Implicit long term memory is perhaps the car accident you saw a year ago that was quite terrible, that made an impression that stays with you.

Short term memory is your everyday functional memory. Anything from what you had for breakfast to who you have to call right now, to how to remember what you have to do next. That’s your short-term memory. Seeing something and do you remember it. The systems that we learn typically most affect and are most helpful for our short term memory. Short term, I can’t place a time limit on it. If I memorize something I usually tell myself how long I want to remember it, and then I may repeat whatever trick I’ve used, whatever visualization I’ve used and you can see a number of them in this video series. Perhaps the next day, I’ll just review what I learned and perhaps one day more. Then I’ve taken that short term memory and turned it into an explicit long term memory.

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My name’s Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secret Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory,” and the question is raised about the association between drinking alcohol and your memory. Let me give you the answer. Don’t do it. If you have something you need to remember, from my personal experience, I know that it has a very severe negative impact. Let me go a step further, take it to the extreme.

The late, great chess player, probably the best chess player of all time, Bobby Fischer would not drink alcohol at all. I personally heard an interview where he said he wouldn’t take an aspirin for several days before a tournament. Aspirin thins your blood, perhaps less oxygen to the brain. Bottom line is this, I’m not a teetotaler. If you want a drink, have a drink. But if you have something important to remember, stay away until after you’ve taken care of that matter.

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My name is Barry Wrightman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory,” and I’d like to discuss the question of how do you keep your memory sharp? There are a lot of different answers to that all kinds of converging ideas, but let me suggest first general health and a decent sleep time. If you’re not in good shape generally, your memory is going to feel that.

Beyond that, I like to think in terms of the many tricks and tips that I convey in my books and other books convey that help you get around any un-sharp memory problems you may have. A lot of people suggest exercise of the brain; is it really valuable? I don’t know, although I think I’m a little bit sharper since I started doing crossword puzzles regularly, think of it as exercise just like the heavy weights in the gym. If you do something a lot you’re going to develop brain muscle, I don’t know, I’m not a medical doctor, but I think it might work. But, I always refer back to the tricks , the mnemonic tricks that I use to remember things to get around any problem there may be.

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My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks For a Powerful Memory,” and I’d like to discuss the question of what’s normal forgetfulness, or do I have a serious problem in my forgetfulness? Let me start out with a disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I am not a psychologist, but I have some experience in the area of memory, certainly.

If you think you have a problem, please feel free, feel encouraged to speak to your family physician about it. They will know exactly what questions to ask to see if you need to go to the next step. In all likelihood, you do not have a serious problem. In all likelihood, the pressures of everyday living are reaching you. And you can use some of the many of the techniques in this system to get around those problems. But don’t shy away from it.

I personally have a serious medical related memory problem that I only realized almost by accident, and I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner. I could’ve done something sooner. So, the answer is you probably don’t have a serious problem, but I don’t believe any general video can answer that. Speak to a medical professional.

My name’s Barry Reitman. I’m the author of Secrets, Tips, and Tricks of a Powerful Memory. I’d like to talk to you about something that affects us a lot sometimes, and that’s a schedule change in the morning.

I first came upon this problem listening to a conversation at my local poker game. On either side of me were my friends Lee and his wife Lisa. In the off time during the game, during the tournament Lisa said, “I hope I go to the Budd Lake office tomorrow.” And then she expounded upon that. Her main office is in Morristown, New Jersey. But once every couple of weeks, she has to go to the satellite office in the other direction from their home at Budd Lake, New Jersey.

I said, “Lisa, where’s your car parked at night, in the garage or out in the front of the house?” And she kind of looked at me like I was crazy. But Lee, who had heard something about my system said, “Listen to Barry. Let’s see where he takes this.” And she said, “Well, I park in front of the house, right outside the front door.” I said, “Okay. Do you have a brass door knob on the front door?” Now she knew I was crazy and since Lee seemed to be agreeing with me, she knew that we were both nuts. But she had some patience and we went on. I said, “Tomorrow morning, when you reach for that brass door knob to go to your car, you’re not going to be able to open the door. That brass door knob won’t be brass anymore. You know what it’s going to be? It’s going to be a flower bud. A soft, squishy flower bud, and when you try to turn it you’re going to feel it get all moist and wet and mushy, and you’re going to remember it’s a bud. Budd Lake is where you have to go. You won’t have to drive to Morristown and then drive all the way back. That will remind you.”

That’s how I handle schedule changes particularly in the morning when we’re rushing around. Just see a picture of something you have to reach for. The front door knob, and change it into a picture that represents where you must go in this schedule change.

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My name’s Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips, and Tricks of a Powerful Memory” and I’d like to discuss a common problem — remembering to take something with you in the morning on the way to work or on the way to school. I think we’ve all had that where we get halfway there or we get to work or we got to school, “Oh, my goodness, I forgot something.”

Let’s have an idea of how to do it. I’m going to give this to you in two steps because it can be fun. The first thing is the front door of your home probably is constructed of steel. Sneak over to the kitchen and take a couple of those silly magnets that you have on the refrigerator and put them on your front door. Normally keep them where the hinge is, so that when the door swings or slams too hard, it won’t get the full effect and so they won’t fall down.

But tonight when you’re working on the Smithers contract for work and you must remember to take that with you in the morning, take a piece of paper and write “Smithers” and put it under the magnet. Now move that magnet over to the doorknob side. You can’t miss it. That’s one way.

But after you do that a couple of times, here’s the fun way. Don’t write it down. Instead take that magnet, put it over to the doorknob side, and see it being blown to smithereens by a piece of dynamite. Smithereens. Oh, yeah, the Smithers contract. And if you see that magnet having been moved from the hinge side to the doorknob side, you know you have to remember something. What do you have to remember? The thing that’s in your picture. That magnet being blown to smithereens. And, yes, you can even take it the next step and just every night think about what you have to take in the morning and associate it to the doorknob. If you don’t happen to like Mr. Smithers, whose contract you’re working on, rip the doorknob off and bonk him in the head.

That’s how you can remember every single morning to take what you have to take.

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My name’s Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory” and I’d like to discuss how to remember the presidents of the United States in order. I’ll give you the first bunch, and you’ll see how I do it, and you can do it the same way. There’s a number of ways to do it. You can tie it to a numbered list, any of the numbered list forms that are in this series.

Let’s do this one as a linked list, because this is something… We’ll know what the names are as we come to them, and the first president of course was president washing machine. I mean Washington. I’m going to see a picture of a washing machine. Inside that washing machine, there’s not clothes. There’s atoms. There’s all those little atoms that you learn about in science class, all the things spinning around. They’re in my washing machine.

What am I going to do about that? I know! Remember Mr. Jefferson from the TV show “The Jefferson’s”? He’ll come over and help me out. Yeah, so I look in my washing machine, and there’s a bunch of atoms spinning around, and I ask Mr. Jefferson to help me, and he does. You know why? He’s a madman. Yeah. Yeah, President Madison. Madman, Madison.

However he’s so mad he actually asked Marilyn Monroe for a date. Isn’t that wacky? President Madison asked Marilyn Monroe. Oh, Marilyn Monroe, President Monroe was number five.

The sixth president was another Adams, John Quincy Adams, and I might picture him with a quince fruit or whatever, but typically I’m going to know that the first John Adams, president number two, the one that was in my washing machine didn’t need a middle name. His son did. That’s how he got John Quincy Adams as the sixth president.

We have John Quincy Adams. Uh-oh, he’s falling down, he’s falling down, and I have to pick him up. He’s a heavy guy, I’m going to have to jack him up with a jack from my car. Yeah, President Jackson.

What we’ve done is linked the first several names. Again there’s two weaknesses in the linking system. One is that if you forget one, you can forget everything that came after it. The other is it doesn’t give you the number the way a numbered system would. So do look at the numbered systems that we have. Tiny bit tougher but much more powerful.

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My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory” and I’d like to talk about how to remember a speech that you’re going to give. I’ll start with a general premise that most speeches, unless it’s something very really unusual are best off delivered in what sounds like an off the cuff manner. You know your stuff but you are not just reading the speech. You want to sound like you mean it and you can do that only if you know your material.

So, number one, know your material using any study method that you find good. Number two, I’m going to give you an example of something. What if you could have 10 3 by 5 index cards invisible to everyone but you, and as you’re making the speech for each key point, you read the key word for that speech. If it’s about the Constitution of The United States and the first Ten Amendments, the first word might be a speech to a religious organization because it’s freedom of speech and freedom of religion. All I would need to see is someone making a speech in a church. If number two on that list, second amendment is right to bear arms, I might see a rifle on my 3 by 5 card. I might see an arm; just an arm by itself with no body attached. It doesn’t matter. Either one will remind me where I’m going.

So if I could have a 3 by 5 card for each major part of my speech, the rest is pretty easy if I know my stuff. Now I’m going to suggest that you take any of the several methods for numbered lists that are in this video series, be they the rhyming method of one two buckle my shoes, three four close the door, or the alphabet method where you’re substituting alphabetical letters A, B, C and you’re putting in Ape, Bear, Chimpanzee because you can picture those, or you’re using the loci system where you’re picturing places in your home. Whatever you are most comfortable with, now take a picture for the key word in the top 5 or 10, 15 things in your speech and connect them. Tie them to your personal memory system. The memory system that you like best for numbered list, and there’s your stack of 3 by 5 index cards, and no one can see them but you.

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My name’s Barry Reitman. I’m the author of Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory and I’m going to speak a little bit about the connection between your memory and sleep. There’s a big connection. In addition to the general 1, where you need a healthy amount of sleep, just to maintain good brain health, there’s a more important 1. I’m not a medical doctor, I’m not a psychologist, but I know it by experience and it works like this.

When I’m looking to remember something important with any of the many systems that I use and teach, if it’s difficult, or big, or important, I will try to learn it before my evenings’ sleep. Think about it a little bit and then when I get up in the morning, go back to it. Scientists are saying that there’s some connection and that the dream cycle’s in some strange way, helps to enforce memories. Let me tell you how important it is to me, if I have to remember something, like a list of attendees at an event where I am a public speaker and I just get an hour or 2 before I start, I will study the list, apply my techniques and then find a quite corner and sneak in a power nap. It does the trick.

If I am remembering the crossword puzzle that’s in that days newspaper and I only have a little bit of time, a few hours; it’ll take me a few hours to do the puzzle, maybe twenty minutes or a half an hour and then I’ll spend another ten minutes using my techniques to remember it and again, I’ll sneak in a nap. I find that that virtually doubles my capacity to recall things. Try that. Try doing your studying for school at night and then pick it up again in the morning, or anything else that you have to remember. I think you’ll find that it helps a lot.

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My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory” and I’m going to discuss how to use the alphabet for remembering a list of things that you want to remember.

Essentially we’re just going to use A-B-C-D-E and so on, instead of the numbers one, two, three, four and the rest, but we’re going to make them picturable. I usually try to use animals. For number one, A, ape, and I picture a large ape. The number two, bear, and I picture a bear. Later on, I’ll connect it to whatever I want to remember. Number three can be chimpanzee, a smaller ape. Number four can be a deer. Number five can be an elephant, E, elephant, and so on.

So now I take the list of things that I want to remember, be it a shopping list or notes for a speech that I’m going to make, or things I’m studying that I want to remember in order and I just make a silly picture of the animal with the item that’s in that place on the list. So if the first thing I want to get at the supermarket is tomatoes, I’m not going to picture an ape eating a tomato. That’s almost natural, an ape eating a piece of fruit or vegetable. I’ll take a tomato and I’ll throw it at the ape. Maybe have him duck a couple of times, and I’ll hit him, and I’ll see that tomato splatter all over that ape’s face. That’s a silly picture. It’s a stupid picture. It’s kind of a violent picture. That will make that picture stick in my mind.

If the next item on my list is a loaf of bread and I want to use a bear, a grizzly bear, again might almost be natural, the bear breaks into the campsite and gets a loaf of bread. So what I’m going to do is have a bear sandwich. No, I’m not even going to slice it. I’m going to take a whole bear, shrink it down, and put it between two pieces of bread.

The next number on my list is C, chimpanzee, and perhaps the next item that I want to get from the store is shoe polish. Well, that might work. I’m going to take shoe polish and picture myself polishing that chimpanzee’s feet. And he’s kind of in to it. It’s something unusual. I can deal with that. As long as I see that picture, I’m good, and I’ll go through the alphabet. Again instead of one, two, three, four, I’ll go A-B-C-D as these animal pictures.

Now when it comes time to go to the store and see my list in order, ape. I know that ape is number one in my animal system, and I know that I saw that ape ducking those tomatoes I was throwing him. I saw that picture. How can I not know it? Tomatoes is the first thing I have to get. The second number is bear, B, number two, and the second item… What was the second item on my list? Well, I know, I shrunk down a bear and I had a bear sandwich, I have to get some bread. And on, and on, and on, as long as that vocabulary of animals for alphabet is a part of you. As long as you know that vocabulary, you don’t have to ask yourself, “What is number two on the list?” All you have to ask yourself is, “What silly picture did I see with the bear?”

And that’s how it works, and it works.

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My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips, and Tricks of a Powerful Memory” and I’d like to address the question, “What is the mnemonic system?” And in truth, the mnemonic system is any artificial system to help your natural memory.

Natural memory is that which you retain without trying. You’re walking by something. You see it, and it’s there without your having tried. You meet someone and that someone is perhaps important to you, and you don’t think to try to remember their name but you may remember it anyway. That’s your natural memory. It’s hit or miss. So what we do is apply various techniques. Many of them are within this video series.

There’s the body part technique. And the loci technique. And the rhyming technique. And many many more. Those mechanical devices to help you picture things, focus and picture things. Those represent all, collectively, mnemonics.

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My name is Barry Reitman. I’m the author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory”. I’m going to talk a little bit about the link method of remembering, also the story method of remembering, and then at the end I’m going to tell you something interesting.

The link method or the story method are what they sound like. You’re going to take a list of items and link one to the next to the next. The good part is that you only have to remember the first item. The rest are linked in pictures. You’re always going to visualize. You’re going to focus and picture what you want to remember. So if the first thing I want to remember for my list of chores tomorrow morning is to go to the jewelry store to buy a gift, I’m going to take a wrist watch in my mind’s eye and put it on my big toe on my right foot. Toe is one of the ways I always remember number one, so if I want to remember what’s the first item, “What’s on my toe? Oh, I could see it. It’s a wrist watch.” I actually had to take off my shoe and sock to see what time it was. That’s not true. So the number one item is a wrist watch. That will remind me to go to the jewelry store. Whether I’m going there to buy a gift of a necklace or to get a watch fixed, it doesn’t matter. It’s my list. It’s not someone else’s list. I’m putting it together. If I see jewelry store or anything to remind me of jewelry store, I’ll know that’s number one.

The second thing I have to do tomorrow is pick up sunflower seeds. You know the birds in the backyard, I love them but this time of year it’s heck. They’re going through a lot of sunflower seeds, I had to buy a big bag of sunflower seeds. Well, I’m going to link those sunflower seeds to the first item. First item was the jewelry store represented by a wrist watch, second item I’m going to represent that bird seed with a parakeet. How am I going to link it? It has to be silly, it has to be stupid, it has to be dopey. So I’m going to picture that wrist watch on the parakeet’s wing. “What time is it? What time is it?” That’s what I’m going to see the picture of. When I’m walking out of that jewelry store, I don’t have to ask myself where I have to go next, because I know I was there because of a wrist watch and I can see the picture automatically of the parakeet wearing the wrist watch.

The next place I want to go is the computer store. I have to pick up my laptop. I hope they fixed it on time. How am I going to remember that? Well, I’m going to link that third item to the second item. The second picture was a parakeet. I’m going to picture a parakeet typing away at this laptop computer entering data. That’s silly enough to remember isn’t it? So I got out of the house. I saw a wrist watch on my big toe. I know I have to go to the jewelry store. I know that the second item is the bird seed, because I saw that wrist watch on the parakeets arm. The next thing that I have to do on my chores today is go to the computer store to see if my laptop has been repaired. How am I going to remember that? Oh, yeah, the second item, the parakeet is typing away on the laptop. Then I have to go to the party store to pick up some balloons and things for my kid’s party. Well, how about if I take the helium balloon, tie it on that laptop computer and watch it rise up to the ceiling, banging against the ceiling. So when I finish with the laptop computer and picking it up, that picture – if I’ve seen the picture, not just the words, if I’ve seen the picture I’ll see that laptop computer being raised up by a helium balloon, I know I have to go to the party store.

I can make a list that’ll take me throughout the day, and I’m going to suggest that it’s probably the weakest of the popular systems. Why is that? Because if you forget any one item, everything that comes after can be lost. I encourage you use it for unimportant things, small things, short lists, but I encourage you if something is important, learn one of the numbering systems, the loci system, the body parts system, any of the systems that are within this series. But I will tell you this. I once sat down with a nine-year-old girl who had her mother said ADD, and she was taking medication for it, and I gave her a list that we composed together. I picked an item, she picked an item, her mother picked an item, and we put together 16-item list. And by linking one thing to the next thing to the next thing, this kid who supposedly couldn’t learn anything had 16 items fixed.

Think about that.

Transcript

I’m Barry Reitman, author of Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory and I’d like to discuss how to use the Peg system also called the Hook System, some folks call it the File-folder System, it’s all the same thing. It’s a way of taking all that data in your brain and assigning it to a place that you’re familiar with so you don’t have to remember abstract data. This will tell you where it is. I use hook numbers, again also called peg numbers. They fall back on the major number system which is another video in this series. There’s also some material at some free links on my website powerfulmemorysecrets.com. I’m gonna give you an overview of it now.

The Peg System or the Hook System uses numbers that are composed of sounds at least 1 through 99. Wow, how am I gonna remember? Well, they’re not abstract. They’re there with a purpose. One of the things you’re gonna learn is that the number one has the sound of t or d, ta or da. You don’t have to know why right now, just accept it as a given. The number four has the sound of the letter m. So 1 might be the t sound and 3 might be the m sound. If I put them together, I might have time. So if I put them together, the t sound and the m sound, I might have the word tomb, like an ancient tomb. Notice the tomb has a b on the end but I’m hearing sounds, I’m not reading letters. Hearing sounds is much better and I can see a tomb. When I think the number 13, one-three, I see a tomb.

You can wake me out of a dead sleep and hit me over the head and say thirteen, I’m gonna see a tomb and that’s how quickly it’s gonna come to you if you spend a little bit of time with this system. If the 13th item that I want to remember in a long list is a bookcase, I wanna refinish the bookcase this weekend, that’s the 13th item on my list; do you do 13 items on a weekend? I try. If the 13th thing I wanna do this weekend is refinish my bookcase, all I have to do is take my bookcase in my mind’s eye and put it in front of the door of the tomb so that I can’t get into number 13 tomb. There’s a big bookcase there and when I see that, when I finish the 12th item, I won’t have to say to myself, okay I finished the 12th item, what’s gonna be the 13th item? I don’t have to do that. I’ve finished the 12th item and all I have to do is say, “What’s in front of the tomb? Oh there it is, I see it. It’s a bookcase blocking the way.” That’s a very short example. I encourage you to learn the major system which will lead you to the hook and peg system, there’s no easy way to do it in a brief video but it’s much easier than you think to learn.

Transcript

I’m Barry Reitman, author of Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory. And I’m going to speak a little bit about the loci system, how it evolved and what it means to you. Loci, plural of locus, simply means location or locations. 2,500 years ago a great poet named Simonides was at a banquet. He was asked to step outside to speak to someone and just as he left the banquet hall, it collapsed. This big stone structure collapsed in on everyone who remained. They were unrecognizable.

But Simonides realized that he could tell the authorities which remains belong to whom because he had seen them at these tables. So, he remembered them by their location. And this led him to realize, as is recorded by Cicero, this led him to realize that if you know the location of something, or if you put something in a location you can remember it. In this case, the name of individuals.

The loci system is truly synonymous with the memory palace system. I generally think of memory palace as my home. You will think of it as your home and there is another video in this series that discusses that. If you want to extrapolate it out a little bit, let’s say, loci locations and make it broader. It might be the stops on bus that you ride to school everyday or on the train that you ride to work. It may be the exits on the highway. It may be the stores in a shopping center that you visit frequently or in which you work. It doesn’t matter. Give those things numbers.

You arbitrarily decide what those numbers are, in order, obviously if it’s something like the bus route, just take them in the order that you come upon them. Number one is Main Street, number two is Elm Street, whatever they happen to be. And refresh yourself on them several times until they become automatic. It’ll be soon because it’s your regular route. And then when you have to remember something, perhaps a shopping list or a list of things to do, you’re going to associate those things in silly pictures tied to those bus stops, those train stations, or those stores in the shopping center. A couple of examples perhaps, let’s say you have a shopping list and you want to remember to get hamburger meat and fresh salmon and ice cream.

And the first exit on the highway that you pass every single day is Hariman. Well, number one is Hariman and number one on your shopping list is hamburger meat. I’m sorry, but I am going to picture a hairy man, Hariman, eating raw hamburger meat. I’m going to see a picture of that. If I just say the words it’s not going to help me. But if I see a picture of some hairy man eating raw hamburger meat there is no question in my mind. If the second stop on the highway that I drive every single day is Moatville and second thing I wanted to buy is fresh salmon, I might picture giant salmon swimming around in a moat. A moat, you know, that water bed that surrounds a castle.

And I’m going to have, not salmon swimming in the moat, because that’s a pretty natural picture, I have to make my picture silly or outrageous in some way. So, I’m going to have giant salmon, as big as the castle itself, swimming in that moat. I’m going to continue to do this with each stop. I already know that they represent the numbers. So, when I get to the store I don’t have to say, what was the first item I have to get? What was the first item?

All I have to do, since I know that my first exit on the highway is Hariman, all I have to do is ask myself what did I see a hairy man doing? He was eating raw hamburger meat, of course. You can’t forget a list if you use a loci system.

I’m Barry Reitman, author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory,” and I’d like to discus the question of how do you remember a word or a name that you’re blanking on? It happens to all of us, doesn’t it? There’s two different answers. One is when you’ve used one of the many systems that you’ll see in this video series, where you’ve pictured a name, where you’ve pictured Mary with a wedding band – Marry, Mary, a wedding band around her head – when you’re using silly pictures like that, it’s really easy. Because what I say to people is, “Don’t try to remember her name.” If your natural memory has learned it, you won’t have to try, you’ll see her face and you’ll know it’s Mary. But if it’s one of the first times you’ve met her, and you can’t place it, the last thing you want to do is say, “What’s her name?” What you want to say is, “What picture did I see? She has a big forehead, what did I see around – I saw a wedding band. Marry. Every Mary I see is going to be associated with a wedding band, so once I see a wedding band around her head, I know it’s Mary. I’ve seen the picture, and then that picture, that system will tell my natural memory what it is.Natural memory, system memory, they work together as a symbiosis and one will inform the other.

The next is more difficult, of course if you haven’t used a memory system, a mnemonic system of some sort, and maybe you’ve just heard the name. So, of course, as a memory person, I’ll say, “Try to use it all the time.” But if you haven’t, all I can suggest is if it’s getting to you, back off. Think of something else.

Some experts actually say, “Make a fist with your left hand if you’re blanking on a name or a word.” And there’s a lot of theory that the left hand is connected to the right part of the brain and that might – I personally don’t know if those theories are valid. But I do believe that the idea of, in this case, making a fist with one hand might pull you back from that question of, “What’s her name, what’s her name?” and might help your natural memory relax, and when it’s relaxed, you’ll do a better job.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Barry Wrightman, author of “Secrets, Tips and Tricks of a Powerful Memory, and I’m here to discuss a question that you may have; how to remember which months have 30 days or which months have whatever number of days? The simple answer is still the best; most of us learned it when we were four or five or six years old, but just to review in case you didn’t, I don’t know anything better.

Simple little rhyme scheme: 30 days has September, April, June and November. Once you’ve gotten that little rhyme together, the rest falls into place, and I won’t necessarily do it right now in the rhyme scheme, but everything else has 31 except February, and you’re familiar with February it’s a short month with 28 days, 29 in leap year. So, once I’ve said 30 days has September, April, June, and November by default, I know every single month.