WEBVTT 00:00:22.119 --> 00:00:27.960 [music] 00:02:10.940 --> 00:02:14.860 V.O.: Balance. Balance. Balance. Balance. Balance. 00:02:24.440 --> 00:02:26.480 [music] 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:36.080 V.O.: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:37.720 Two. One. 00:02:38.600 --> 00:02:41.480 Yay! 00:02:47.600 --> 00:02:49.840 C.H.: Let me pull out my mic real quick. 00:02:52.900 --> 00:02:57.480 Wow, that was awesome. OK. So, we don't know 00:02:57.489 --> 00:03:00.790 that much about memory, but what we do know 00:03:00.790 --> 00:03:02.379 is that if I were to start reading off 00:03:02.379 --> 00:03:04.799 a list of random words, you would only be 00:03:04.799 --> 00:03:08.299 able to memorize about four of those things. And 00:03:08.299 --> 00:03:11.109 then, if we wait twenty to thirty seconds, and 00:03:11.109 --> 00:03:14.249 talk about anything else, you're only gonna remember about 00:03:14.249 --> 00:03:17.090 two, or one, or none. 00:03:17.090 --> 00:03:18.689 We kind of know that, right. Almost every person 00:03:18.689 --> 00:03:20.909 I've met has told me, I have a really 00:03:20.909 --> 00:03:24.029 bad memory. So that's understood. But at the same 00:03:24.029 --> 00:03:26.840 time, if I walk up to anybody in this 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:29.760 room and I ask how to get to the 00:03:29.760 --> 00:03:33.290 restroom, you could probably tell me. And you could 00:03:33.290 --> 00:03:35.790 probably tell me with, like, really good detail. 00:03:35.790 --> 00:03:37.680 Like, walk out of that door. There's gonna be 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:39.400 the thing with the coffee and the tea on 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:42.569 it. Just passed that is the registration desk. Take 00:03:42.569 --> 00:03:45.069 a right. We're gonna pass the escalators. And we're 00:03:45.069 --> 00:03:46.870 gonna have two sets of elevators. The one on 00:03:46.870 --> 00:03:48.650 the left that only goes up to the seventeenth 00:03:48.650 --> 00:03:50.049 floor, right. The one on the right starts at 00:03:50.049 --> 00:03:52.680 the eighteenth floor. Keep going. We're gonna see the 00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:56.019 women's restroom first and then the men's restroom. 00:03:56.019 --> 00:03:58.459 We could all do that. So, on one hand, 00:03:58.459 --> 00:04:00.879 we have a memory that completely sucks, but at 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:03.230 the same time we're able to, like, magically memorize 00:04:03.230 --> 00:04:05.719 the blueprint of this building. And we don't even 00:04:05.719 --> 00:04:10.760 try to do it. So has does that work? 00:04:10.760 --> 00:04:14.299 What memory athletes do when they memorize gigantic lists 00:04:14.299 --> 00:04:16.980 of words is, instead of using that short term 00:04:16.980 --> 00:04:19.399 memory that we call it, or present memory, they 00:04:19.399 --> 00:04:21.290 use their spatial memory. The same memory that we 00:04:21.290 --> 00:04:23.360 use to memorize location. Which is what I tried 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:26.030 to do today. So we'll see how we did 00:04:26.030 --> 00:04:28.610 with ten random words, which is more than double 00:04:28.610 --> 00:04:30.280 the amount of words that we're supposed to be 00:04:30.280 --> 00:04:31.900 able to memorize. 00:04:31.900 --> 00:04:35.280 So the first word was me staring at my 00:04:35.280 --> 00:04:38.060 watch, right. Anticipation. Does anyone remember what happened next? 00:04:38.060 --> 00:04:43.020 Clown. Perfect. And then what? Yes. Clown and opera. 00:04:43.020 --> 00:04:44.900 And we did a little trick there where we 00:04:44.900 --> 00:04:46.550 combined the two, right. I was wearing the clown 00:04:46.550 --> 00:04:48.979 thing and I was singing. Does anyone remember what 00:04:48.979 --> 00:04:50.520 happened next when I came over to this side 00:04:50.520 --> 00:04:52.110 of - yeah, I don't even need to remind 00:04:52.110 --> 00:04:53.460 you. Perfect. Car. 00:04:53.460 --> 00:04:57.110 And then what happened over here? Discovered an orange. 00:04:57.110 --> 00:05:00.699 That's awesome. You guys are doing really well. After 00:05:00.699 --> 00:05:07.699 that, what happened next? Sprint. Great. So I balanced 00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:10.410 on my hands, and then we sprint back over 00:05:10.410 --> 00:05:12.379 to the other side of the stage, and there 00:05:12.379 --> 00:05:14.840 was a countdown playing on the speakers, right. And 00:05:14.840 --> 00:05:19.020 then we ended up applause. That's excellent. That's the 00:05:19.020 --> 00:05:22.460 entire method. That's what everybody uses to memorize thousands 00:05:22.460 --> 00:05:25.599 and thousands and thousands of digits, or hundreds and 00:05:25.599 --> 00:05:27.720 hundreds and hundreds of random words. Is just by 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:30.419 visualizing it and using that spatial memory. 00:05:30.419 --> 00:05:31.970 So now we're gonna see how to apply that 00:05:31.970 --> 00:05:34.680 to a few different things. The first thing is 00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:36.590 gonna be names, cause everybody has a hard time 00:05:36.590 --> 00:05:39.300 with names. How many people do you think you've 00:05:39.300 --> 00:05:41.229 met this conference? I think I've met maybe like 00:05:41.229 --> 00:05:42.830 two hundred people. All right. I think there's fifteen 00:05:42.830 --> 00:05:45.789 hundred people. I remember about half of those names, 00:05:45.789 --> 00:05:48.210 and I was actually trying to remember them. So 00:05:48.210 --> 00:05:49.560 it's probably a lot worse for some of you 00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:51.300 who weren't trying. 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:54.520 When you first meet somebody, what you want to 00:05:54.520 --> 00:05:57.139 do is actually listen to them tell you their 00:05:57.139 --> 00:05:59.120 name. Cause a lot of the times when we're 00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:01.789 meeting somebody, right, we're five seconds into the conversation 00:06:01.789 --> 00:06:03.650 and we completely forgot their name. Well, our memories 00:06:03.650 --> 00:06:05.849 actually aren't that bad. We just weren't paying attention 00:06:05.849 --> 00:06:08.310 when we were introduced to them. So remember their 00:06:08.310 --> 00:06:09.340 name. 00:06:09.340 --> 00:06:11.270 The second thing you want to do is kick 00:06:11.270 --> 00:06:14.030 in that spatial memory. So to do that, this 00:06:14.030 --> 00:06:17.770 is Ryan. Everybody say hi Ryan. All right. So 00:06:17.770 --> 00:06:19.530 you've got the first thing down. You've listened to 00:06:19.530 --> 00:06:21.629 the name. Now you want to look at Ryan 00:06:21.629 --> 00:06:24.099 and find something that stands out to you. 00:06:24.099 --> 00:06:26.650 Now Ryan's got, obviously he's got his own look 00:06:26.650 --> 00:06:28.169 going on, so he, he's given us a lot 00:06:28.169 --> 00:06:30.139 of things to look at but first thing I 00:06:30.139 --> 00:06:31.909 notice for him is his tattoo on his neck. 00:06:31.909 --> 00:06:35.639 So if I want to remember Ryan, I'm gonna 00:06:35.639 --> 00:06:37.970 look at that tattoo, and I'm gonna think of 00:06:37.970 --> 00:06:41.000 a word that rhymes with the word Ryan. Something 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.860 that I can easily visualize, and then attach it 00:06:43.860 --> 00:06:45.270 to that tattoo. 00:06:45.270 --> 00:06:48.740 So Ryan, for me, makes me think of lion. 00:06:48.740 --> 00:06:52.060 So I'm gonna imagine, coming up on Ryan's right-hand 00:06:52.060 --> 00:06:54.039 size, a big lion running. He's got like a 00:06:54.039 --> 00:06:56.300 bright-orange main, he's breathing hard. He jumps up in 00:06:56.300 --> 00:06:57.800 the air and he bites Ryan in the neck 00:06:57.800 --> 00:06:59.879 and just, like, rips off his tattoo, and he's 00:06:59.879 --> 00:07:02.800 flailing it around. There's blood everywhere. The lion's like, 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:04.949 throwing the tattoo at you and you're super grossed 00:07:04.949 --> 00:07:07.590 out. The most offensive you can make the image, 00:07:07.590 --> 00:07:09.409 the better, because then it's gonna be more memorable. 00:07:09.409 --> 00:07:12.219 So the next time we see Ryan, we'll immediately 00:07:12.219 --> 00:07:15.810 notice his tattoo. We're gonna remember that crazy scene 00:07:15.810 --> 00:07:17.729 of a lion ripping off his tattoo and throwing 00:07:17.729 --> 00:07:19.460 it around the room, and then we'll be able 00:07:19.460 --> 00:07:21.750 to connect that again with Ryan. Make sense? So 00:07:21.750 --> 00:07:23.770 names are pretty easy. And I bet you all 00:07:23.770 --> 00:07:26.080 can start doing that right now. 00:07:26.080 --> 00:07:28.629 Let's move on to the next thing. And that 00:07:28.629 --> 00:07:32.659 is memorizing a shuffled deck of playing cards. This 00:07:32.659 --> 00:07:34.800 is, this is, the first thing that I started 00:07:34.800 --> 00:07:37.580 getting interested in when I got into memory. It's 00:07:37.580 --> 00:07:39.889 actually more, more useful than you think it is. 00:07:39.889 --> 00:07:43.169 The reason you want to memorize cards is because 00:07:43.169 --> 00:07:45.610 it's the only thing that you can memorize that 00:07:45.610 --> 00:07:48.990 will actually impress your friends, for number one, the 00:07:48.990 --> 00:07:51.409 second reason is because it teaches you everything you 00:07:51.409 --> 00:07:54.310 need to know to compete in the world memory 00:07:54.310 --> 00:07:58.819 competition. All the techniques that are important for that. 00:07:58.819 --> 00:08:03.129 So, looking at a card, here we have the 00:08:03.129 --> 00:08:06.689 seven of diamonds and the seven of hearts. The 00:08:06.689 --> 00:08:09.719 reason why this is so difficult to memorize is 00:08:09.719 --> 00:08:12.289 because they're just hard to visualize. These two cards 00:08:12.289 --> 00:08:14.569 almost look exactly the same. If I wanted to 00:08:14.569 --> 00:08:16.189 just close my eyes and try to use this 00:08:16.189 --> 00:08:18.099 visual technique we've been talking about and I visualize 00:08:18.099 --> 00:08:20.159 the seven of diamonds and I visualize the seven 00:08:20.159 --> 00:08:22.800 of hearts, I'm probably still gonna forget it. It's 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:23.620 difficult. 00:08:23.620 --> 00:08:25.729 So what the pros do is, instead of memorizing 00:08:25.729 --> 00:08:29.810 cards, they memorize people. So the seven of diamonds, 00:08:29.810 --> 00:08:32.929 for me, is Isaac Newton. The seven of hearts 00:08:32.929 --> 00:08:35.700 is Einstein. So these guys are much easier to 00:08:35.700 --> 00:08:38.490 memorize. They're completely different. You can imagine them interacting 00:08:38.490 --> 00:08:41.469 with each other, doing different things, right. 00:08:41.469 --> 00:08:43.390 So the next step is to think of a 00:08:43.390 --> 00:08:47.050 person for every single card in the deck. That's 00:08:47.050 --> 00:08:49.500 fifty-two people. And when I first heard this, I 00:08:49.500 --> 00:08:52.180 almost stopped. Because that sounds like, I mean, I 00:08:52.180 --> 00:08:54.120 gotta use my memory to do that, right. But 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:58.320 there's a technique, a trick, it's called mnemonic. And 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:01.690 mnemonics just take information that's available to you, that's 00:09:01.690 --> 00:09:03.060 already right in front of your face, and uses 00:09:03.060 --> 00:09:05.000 that information to remind you of the thing it 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:06.610 is that you want to remember. 00:09:06.610 --> 00:09:09.180 So, looking at a card, we have two bits 00:09:09.180 --> 00:09:12.160 of information. We have the value of the card, 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:14.170 so for, for, four of hearts, it's a four, 00:09:14.170 --> 00:09:16.029 and then we have the suit of the card. 00:09:16.029 --> 00:09:17.910 Just looking at those two things can remind us 00:09:17.910 --> 00:09:19.820 of the person it is that we associated with 00:09:19.820 --> 00:09:22.139 that card. So we'll go through the values really 00:09:22.139 --> 00:09:25.130 quickly here. You'll reference these later I'm sure. But 00:09:25.130 --> 00:09:27.810 every ace and every two in the deck is 00:09:27.810 --> 00:09:30.660 an athlete. Doesn't matter what the suit is. Ace 00:09:30.660 --> 00:09:33.209 of clubs, ace of spades, ace of diamonds. These 00:09:33.209 --> 00:09:37.670 are all athletes. Ace is a male athlete. Two 00:09:37.670 --> 00:09:39.260 is a female athlete. 00:09:39.260 --> 00:09:42.110 Every three and four is an actor. Three is 00:09:42.110 --> 00:09:44.399 a male actor, four is a female actor. Every 00:09:44.399 --> 00:09:47.550 five and six is a controversial or sketchy person, 00:09:47.550 --> 00:09:49.930 somebody that's done something that not everyone agrees with. 00:09:49.930 --> 00:09:52.440 And these are people that you can think of. 00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:54.170 Five is a male, six is a female. So 00:09:54.170 --> 00:09:56.149 you might see a pattern. Every single odd card 00:09:56.149 --> 00:09:57.990 in the deck is a male. Every single even 00:09:57.990 --> 00:10:01.209 card in the deck is a female. 00:10:01.209 --> 00:10:05.060 Seven and eight. These are people of, like, any 00:10:05.060 --> 00:10:09.970 kind of science field. Physics, math, any scientist. Remember 00:10:09.970 --> 00:10:12.560 my seven of diamonds, seven of hearts, had Isaac 00:10:12.560 --> 00:10:15.490 Newton and Einstein. Again, seven's a male, eight's a 00:10:15.490 --> 00:10:18.269 female. Nine and ten, these are people of power. 00:10:18.269 --> 00:10:21.600 That can mean political power or super human powers. 00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:23.899 Any of that stuff. And queen and king, this 00:10:23.899 --> 00:10:25.980 is a couple. This could be a famous couple. 00:10:25.980 --> 00:10:29.199 A couple you know. This could be you. Whatever. 00:10:29.199 --> 00:10:31.260 And finally jack. There are four of these in 00:10:31.260 --> 00:10:35.000 the deck, too. And these are all religious figures. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:35.320 K. 00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:39.560 The second thing. Suit. There are four suits we 00:10:39.560 --> 00:10:41.820 have. Each of these are a specific type of 00:10:41.820 --> 00:10:45.310 person. So a diamond is a rich person, or 00:10:45.310 --> 00:10:48.350 a fancy person, or a shiny person. Think diamonds, 00:10:48.350 --> 00:10:51.560 right. Shiny, fancy. Hearts, these are people you love. 00:10:51.560 --> 00:10:55.980 This can be family, friends. Clubs, these are, like, 00:10:55.980 --> 00:10:58.820 bad people. You can think strong, Arno - I 00:10:58.820 --> 00:11:00.560 have, I use Arnold Schwarzenegger for one of my 00:11:00.560 --> 00:11:04.370 club cards. Sylvester Stallone, another good example. Or people 00:11:04.370 --> 00:11:06.660 who are just, like, bad at what they do. 00:11:06.660 --> 00:11:09.910 Spades. This means funny. These can be comedians, friends, 00:11:09.910 --> 00:11:13.160 joksters, or other things that are funny to you. 00:11:13.160 --> 00:11:15.760 So taking those two things combined, now, we can 00:11:15.760 --> 00:11:19.560 try to memorize three cards. So we have ace 00:11:19.560 --> 00:11:23.149 of diamonds, jack of spades, and four of hearts. 00:11:23.149 --> 00:11:24.779 So first thing we want to do is look 00:11:24.779 --> 00:11:26.949 at the suit, right. You may not remember, but 00:11:26.949 --> 00:11:30.930 ace is a male athlete. And diamonds is super 00:11:30.930 --> 00:11:34.350 fancy, or extravagant or rich. So this, for me, 00:11:34.350 --> 00:11:36.949 is Michael Jordan. And for the rest of my 00:11:36.949 --> 00:11:39.699 life, this will always be Michael Jordon. 00:11:39.699 --> 00:11:41.829 The next card we have is jack of spades. 00:11:41.829 --> 00:11:46.160 Remember jack is a religious person, spades means funny. 00:11:46.160 --> 00:11:51.350 So a funny religious person. The Dali Llama. Next 00:11:51.350 --> 00:11:55.089 card is four of hearts. Remember four is a 00:11:55.089 --> 00:12:00.170 female actor. Hearts is somebody you love. So it's 00:12:00.170 --> 00:12:03.350 a female actor that I love. Well, we may 00:12:03.350 --> 00:12:06.079 have all different opinions on this, but I'm married. 00:12:06.079 --> 00:12:08.800 So this is my wife. Remember, this is just, 00:12:08.800 --> 00:12:10.570 you can use whatever pictures you want. This is 00:12:10.570 --> 00:12:12.220 just a reminder. So four of hearts is my 00:12:12.220 --> 00:12:15.029 wife. She's not an actor. And she's putting a 00:12:15.029 --> 00:12:18.120 Santa hat on my dog Baxter. 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:20.440 So now we have three very different images that 00:12:20.440 --> 00:12:23.139 we need to memorize. And we could, if we 00:12:23.139 --> 00:12:25.300 wanted to, build a story, like we did with 00:12:25.300 --> 00:12:27.320 the words. And we already know you guys can 00:12:27.320 --> 00:12:29.070 do that, cause we just did it, right. So 00:12:29.070 --> 00:12:31.800 you can imagine there's a basketball court. Michael Jordon's 00:12:31.800 --> 00:12:34.699 dribbling down the basketball court. He jumps up, slam 00:12:34.699 --> 00:12:36.980 dunks the basketball and for, for whatever reason, the 00:12:36.980 --> 00:12:39.610 Dali Llama is like, he's down below the basketball 00:12:39.610 --> 00:12:41.690 hoop praying, and so the ball just hits him 00:12:41.690 --> 00:12:43.639 in the back of the head, and boom, his 00:12:43.639 --> 00:12:45.990 head hits the ground. There's blood everywhere. My dog 00:12:45.990 --> 00:12:47.610 comes running out of the locker room. He's running 00:12:47.610 --> 00:12:49.509 around in the blood. He's leaving footsteps all over 00:12:49.509 --> 00:12:52.759 the ground. Loise is screaming. It's crazy, right. 00:12:52.759 --> 00:12:54.190 So you won't forget that. And that's how you 00:12:54.190 --> 00:12:55.440 would memorize three cards. 00:12:55.440 --> 00:12:58.769 But there's actually a more popular technique of memorizing 00:12:58.769 --> 00:13:00.670 when you have lots of things to memorize. So 00:13:00.670 --> 00:13:02.920 we have to memorize fifty-two cards. So we're probably 00:13:02.920 --> 00:13:06.329 gonna wanna use this. This is called the method 00:13:06.329 --> 00:13:09.930 of Loki. Also known as the journey method or 00:13:09.930 --> 00:13:13.180 the memory palace. Most people have heard of this. 00:13:13.180 --> 00:13:15.769 The way this works is you take a location 00:13:15.769 --> 00:13:18.769 that you're really, really familiar with. You're probably gonna 00:13:18.769 --> 00:13:20.750 start with your house cause you're probably really familiar 00:13:20.750 --> 00:13:23.509 with your house. And you imagine yourself walking from 00:13:23.509 --> 00:13:26.339 room to room to room. So you would walk 00:13:26.339 --> 00:13:29.060 through your front door into your bedroom, and here 00:13:29.060 --> 00:13:30.870 you would place the first thing you want to 00:13:30.870 --> 00:13:32.709 remember. So if it's Michael Jordon, you might see 00:13:32.709 --> 00:13:34.820 him jumping off your bed and slam dunking into 00:13:34.820 --> 00:13:37.440 your laundry basket. The important thing is to look 00:13:37.440 --> 00:13:39.610 at everything in your room and imagine your memory 00:13:39.610 --> 00:13:42.529 interacting with those things so it's firmly planted. 00:13:42.529 --> 00:13:44.230 And then you go to the next room, say 00:13:44.230 --> 00:13:46.290 the bathroom. You do the same thing here with 00:13:46.290 --> 00:13:49.160 your second memory. So here we'd have Dali Llama. 00:13:49.160 --> 00:13:50.860 Maybe he's in the shower and the Buddha's in 00:13:50.860 --> 00:13:53.889 the sink. I don't know. You then leave the 00:13:53.889 --> 00:13:56.259 bathroom. You walk into the living room. And here's 00:13:56.259 --> 00:13:58.519 where you place your third memory. You look at 00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:01.290 the TV, you look at the carpet, you look 00:14:01.290 --> 00:14:03.690 at the couch, you imagine your memory interacting with 00:14:03.690 --> 00:14:06.440 all of those things. And then you retrace your 00:14:06.440 --> 00:14:08.920 steps from the beginning of the journey, and everything 00:14:08.920 --> 00:14:11.850 will be right where you left it. So if 00:14:11.850 --> 00:14:14.250 you're like me and you're from, I'm in Portland 00:14:14.250 --> 00:14:15.519 now so I have a little bit more room, 00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:18.079 but if you're coming from San Fransisco or even 00:14:18.079 --> 00:14:21.110 here in Chicago, you're memory palace might look something 00:14:21.110 --> 00:14:22.540 like this. 00:14:22.540 --> 00:14:25.060 So I would actually recommend, and this is a 00:14:25.060 --> 00:14:27.259 better method, is to go outside to make your 00:14:27.259 --> 00:14:29.120 journey. Cause you have a lot more room this 00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:30.759 way. So this is a run that I do 00:14:30.759 --> 00:14:32.269 a couple times a week, and I've ran it 00:14:32.269 --> 00:14:34.509 so many times that I could close my eyes 00:14:34.509 --> 00:14:37.690 and run it and I have thirty-four locations that 00:14:37.690 --> 00:14:39.709 I could place memories. And then I just start 00:14:39.709 --> 00:14:41.980 my run over again and I go back through, 00:14:41.980 --> 00:14:44.490 and they'll all be sitting there waiting for me. 00:14:44.490 --> 00:14:47.779 And thirty-four doesn't seem like, like a ton, but 00:14:47.779 --> 00:14:51.060 that's actually enough to memorize two shuffled decks of 00:14:51.060 --> 00:14:53.100 playing cards. And I'm gonna explain how that works 00:14:53.100 --> 00:14:55.000 right now. 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:57.790 Professional memory athletes need to memorize a lot of 00:14:57.790 --> 00:14:59.480 stuff. And they don't want to be building journeys 00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:02.069 that are like thousands and thousands and thousands of 00:15:02.069 --> 00:15:04.920 locations long. So they're actually able to compress their 00:15:04.920 --> 00:15:08.139 memories to take up less space. So if we, 00:15:08.139 --> 00:15:10.540 instead of just coming up with a person for 00:15:10.540 --> 00:15:12.519 each of our cards, we also come up with 00:15:12.519 --> 00:15:15.540 an action and an action - for example, the 00:15:15.540 --> 00:15:19.630 first card is Michael Jordon slam dunking a basketball, 00:15:19.630 --> 00:15:22.579 the second card is the Dali Llama praying in 00:15:22.579 --> 00:15:24.319 front of the Buddha. The third card is my 00:15:24.319 --> 00:15:27.329 wife Loiussa putting a Santa hat on my dog 00:15:27.329 --> 00:15:31.040 Baxter. We can then compress those three cards into 00:15:31.040 --> 00:15:33.540 a single image, a single memory by taking the 00:15:33.540 --> 00:15:36.940 person from the first card, Michael Jordon. The action 00:15:36.940 --> 00:15:41.199 from the second card, praying. And the object from 00:15:41.199 --> 00:15:42.930 the third card, which is, in this case, my 00:15:42.930 --> 00:15:46.100 dog, and then we combine those into a single 00:15:46.100 --> 00:15:46.550 image. 00:15:46.550 --> 00:15:49.250 So we have Michael Jordon praying to my dog 00:15:49.250 --> 00:15:53.290 Baxter. And the really, really, really great thing about 00:15:53.290 --> 00:15:56.649 this technique, is not only have we compressed our 00:15:56.649 --> 00:15:58.250 memories to take one third of the space that 00:15:58.250 --> 00:16:00.379 they used to before, but we automatically get these 00:16:00.379 --> 00:16:02.600 images that are extremely memorable, and we don't even 00:16:02.600 --> 00:16:04.089 need to think about it. You know, I'm not 00:16:04.089 --> 00:16:06.240 gonna forget Michael Jordon, like, on a, on a 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:08.790 mat in my bedroom praying to my dog who's 00:16:08.790 --> 00:16:10.870 on my dog, like ripping up pillows, like. It's 00:16:10.870 --> 00:16:13.730 very memorable and it's easy to retrace. 00:16:13.730 --> 00:16:17.000 So that's good. If you want to get started, 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:19.970 the gift shop here, I checked actually has Chicago 00:16:19.970 --> 00:16:23.160 themed gift cards, playing cards. So you can go 00:16:23.160 --> 00:16:25.040 check those out. If you start getting quicker and 00:16:25.040 --> 00:16:27.629 want to just have shuffled decks to practice on, 00:16:27.629 --> 00:16:29.170 you can go to this url. It's just spitting 00:16:29.170 --> 00:16:31.750 out shuffled decks of cards, and it'll time you. 00:16:31.750 --> 00:16:33.269 This is also a GitHub repo that shows the, 00:16:33.269 --> 00:16:36.600 the people that I use for these associations. 00:16:36.600 --> 00:16:38.209 That may be a good starting point but it's, 00:16:38.209 --> 00:16:39.100 it's pretty good to come up with your own 00:16:39.100 --> 00:16:40.339 pictures so you actually remember them. 00:16:40.339 --> 00:16:42.190 All right. So that was kind of intense. So 00:16:42.190 --> 00:16:44.850 we're gonna take a quick thirty second break and 00:16:44.850 --> 00:16:48.290 practice our memories. So, find a person to your 00:16:48.290 --> 00:16:49.649 left or to your right, to front, to your 00:16:49.649 --> 00:16:52.629 back, that you haven't met, and memorize their name. 00:16:52.629 --> 00:16:55.680 And I'm gonna give you a quick reminder. Quick 00:16:55.680 --> 00:16:58.860 reminder. Hold on. Hold on. Quick reminder. OK. Find 00:16:58.860 --> 00:17:02.490 something on their face. Attach their name to that 00:17:02.490 --> 00:17:04.400 something on their face and don't actually tell them 00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:07.349 the image you create. That's important. Go. 00:17:07.349 --> 00:17:12.589 OK. Time's up. Sit down. Time's up. Time's up. 00:17:12.589 --> 00:17:14.869 Everybody back. Get it down. All right. Good job. 00:17:14.869 --> 00:17:17.329 So does anybody remember this guy's name? Yes. Good. 00:17:17.329 --> 00:17:20.099 I was hoping no one would get it and 00:17:20.099 --> 00:17:21.089 I'd give you a prize but I don't have 00:17:21.089 --> 00:17:22.609 enough prizes for everybody. OK. 00:17:22.609 --> 00:17:25.480 Moving on. We're now going to memorize something that 00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:27.909 is probably the hardest thing to memorize, but since 00:17:27.909 --> 00:17:30.090 we've all learned how to memorize cards, it's not 00:17:30.090 --> 00:17:31.860 as hard as it once was. We're going to 00:17:31.860 --> 00:17:35.000 memorize numbers. This is definitely the hardest thing to 00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:37.419 memorize, but the person who sets the world record 00:17:37.419 --> 00:17:39.710 for this is able to memorize nine hundred and 00:17:39.710 --> 00:17:43.820 thirty-seven random digits in fifteen minutes, which is four 00:17:43.820 --> 00:17:46.750 credit cards a minute. Kind of amazing, right? Like 00:17:46.750 --> 00:17:50.090 this guy can make bank at a restaurant. 00:17:50.090 --> 00:17:55.159 So. Memorizing these sixteen digits isn't actually that difficult. 00:17:55.159 --> 00:17:56.650 We're gonna use a system a lot like we 00:17:56.650 --> 00:17:59.669 did for the cards, because numbers are basically impossible 00:17:59.669 --> 00:18:02.260 to memorize, we're not gonna memorize numbers at all. 00:18:02.260 --> 00:18:05.000 We're gonna memorize pictures instead of numbers. 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:06.150 So here's a grid I've made. You could do 00:18:06.150 --> 00:18:09.169 the same exact thing. Each of these squares represents 00:18:09.169 --> 00:18:13.909 a two digit number, from zero zero to ninety-nine. 00:18:13.909 --> 00:18:16.159 It's your task to fill all of these squares 00:18:16.159 --> 00:18:19.450 with different pictures that you can memorize every two-digit 00:18:19.450 --> 00:18:22.940 number. So if you started with cards, like I 00:18:22.940 --> 00:18:25.919 recommended, then there's no problem just using those images. 00:18:25.919 --> 00:18:27.700 So numbers one through fifty-two can just be the 00:18:27.700 --> 00:18:29.840 same images you used for your playing cards. So 00:18:29.840 --> 00:18:32.059 now you're over halfway there. You're basically done. You 00:18:32.059 --> 00:18:34.230 only have forty-eight more pictures you've gotta come up 00:18:34.230 --> 00:18:38.020 with. Some of these are gonna be super obvious. 00:18:38.020 --> 00:18:40.929 Like zero zero is a person favorite of mine. 00:18:40.929 --> 00:18:43.240 This, every time I see it, I see a 00:18:43.240 --> 00:18:45.570 set of eyeballs. So it's really easy to remember 00:18:45.570 --> 00:18:47.820 that one. It could be eyeballs. It could be 00:18:47.820 --> 00:18:51.730 sunglasses or goggles. You might imagine, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger 00:18:51.730 --> 00:18:53.679 putting on shades. 00:18:53.679 --> 00:18:56.400 So then we only have now forty-seven numbers left 00:18:56.400 --> 00:18:58.140 that we need to memorize. And some of these 00:18:58.140 --> 00:19:01.669 will have special meaning to you. So 1984, that's 00:19:01.669 --> 00:19:03.380 the year I was born. So I imagine a 00:19:03.380 --> 00:19:08.679 birthday cake with big bright candles, burning fire. 1974, 00:19:08.679 --> 00:19:10.669 that's the year that the Rubik's cube came out, 00:19:10.669 --> 00:19:12.470 and I really love the Rubik's cube so I'm 00:19:12.470 --> 00:19:16.549 never gonna forget that. 1991 was the year that 00:19:16.549 --> 00:19:19.409 the first episode of Doug aired, so I imagine 00:19:19.409 --> 00:19:21.210 the Quail Man every time I see the number 00:19:21.210 --> 00:19:21.750 ninety-one. 00:19:21.750 --> 00:19:25.460 And, and, so that leaves with with now forty-four 00:19:25.460 --> 00:19:27.580 more pictures that we need to come up with, 00:19:27.580 --> 00:19:29.090 and none of these have any meaning to us 00:19:29.090 --> 00:19:33.250 whatsoever, so we'll use another mnemonic to build pictures 00:19:33.250 --> 00:19:35.679 and remind us of those pictures. And a mnemonic 00:19:35.679 --> 00:19:38.830 for this is called the major system. The major 00:19:38.830 --> 00:19:41.890 system is also known as the phonetic system. Because 00:19:41.890 --> 00:19:44.720 each number from zero to nine is assigned a 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:49.500 phonetic sound. So zero is z or zeh. One 00:19:49.500 --> 00:19:54.980 t, teh, teh. Two is n, neh, neh, neh. 00:19:54.980 --> 00:19:59.669 Three is m. Or muh, muh, muh. Four is 00:19:59.669 --> 00:20:05.220 R, ruh. Five is L, luh. Six is J. 00:20:05.220 --> 00:20:11.250 Juh. Seven is K. Or keh, keh. Eight is 00:20:11.250 --> 00:20:14.659 F, or feh, feh. And finally nine is P. 00:20:14.659 --> 00:20:18.470 So. Those are all the phonetic sounds. So let's 00:20:18.470 --> 00:20:19.970 break out a number real quick so we see 00:20:19.970 --> 00:20:22.480 how this works. We'll grab a number, eighty-three. This 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:24.860 number we don't yet have a picture for. And 00:20:24.860 --> 00:20:26.450 we'll apply the major system to give us a 00:20:26.450 --> 00:20:27.860 picture and be able to remind us of that 00:20:27.860 --> 00:20:30.240 picture later. So we take eight and we grab 00:20:30.240 --> 00:20:32.830 the phonetic sound for the number eight, which is 00:20:32.830 --> 00:20:35.279 F, and then we do the same with three, 00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:37.409 so we have M. So some of you might 00:20:37.409 --> 00:20:39.700 see FM and go, oh, FM radio. Well, that's 00:20:39.700 --> 00:20:42.289 totally fine. So your picture now for eighty-three could 00:20:42.289 --> 00:20:44.360 be an FM radio. And that's all you need 00:20:44.360 --> 00:20:45.779 to remember that. 00:20:45.779 --> 00:20:48.059 But you could also just start sticking in vowels, 00:20:48.059 --> 00:20:50.059 things that aren't part of the major system, until 00:20:50.059 --> 00:20:51.500 you make a word that makes sense to you. 00:20:51.500 --> 00:20:53.590 So foam is the first word I found. And 00:20:53.590 --> 00:20:55.909 this is a really good word cause it's extremely 00:20:55.909 --> 00:20:57.150 visual. You can imagine being in your room and 00:20:57.150 --> 00:20:59.870 just spraying foam all over the place. You're not 00:20:59.870 --> 00:21:02.529 gonna forget that. But I kept searching just to 00:21:02.529 --> 00:21:05.190 see if I could find something else. And I 00:21:05.190 --> 00:21:09.470 found FIM. Does anyone know what FIM is? 00:21:09.470 --> 00:21:12.960 No. FIM is not actually a word. But it 00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:15.380 sounds like Vim. Now, remember this is the phonetic 00:21:15.380 --> 00:21:17.850 system, so you're looking for things that sound similar, 00:21:17.850 --> 00:21:21.990 not necessarily spelt the same. So eighty-three, for me, 00:21:21.990 --> 00:21:24.650 is Vim. So I imagine, maybe, my beautiful color 00:21:24.650 --> 00:21:27.760 scheme. Working on some Ruby. Just, basically sitting behind 00:21:27.760 --> 00:21:29.990 the computer, it would be my memory for eighty-three. 00:21:29.990 --> 00:21:31.789 So, we could take the major system and apply 00:21:31.789 --> 00:21:34.320 it to all the rest of the pictures, until 00:21:34.320 --> 00:21:37.510 eventually we have one hundred unique images that are 00:21:37.510 --> 00:21:39.360 easy for us to recall, either by the major 00:21:39.360 --> 00:21:42.510 system or they just have special meaning to us. 00:21:42.510 --> 00:21:44.840 So now, memorizing a credit card number is just 00:21:44.840 --> 00:21:47.809 like memorizing the cards. We go through and break 00:21:47.809 --> 00:21:50.330 the number down into sets of two. So we 00:21:50.330 --> 00:21:52.620 look at forty-four, we grab our image for forty-four. 00:21:52.620 --> 00:21:54.190 We place it in the first room of our 00:21:54.190 --> 00:21:55.330 memory palace. 00:21:55.330 --> 00:21:56.460 We go to the next room. We grab the 00:21:56.460 --> 00:21:58.960 image for eighty-five, we place that in the next 00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:01.429 room. We then move over to maybe the living 00:22:01.429 --> 00:22:03.500 room. We take the image for thirty-four, and we 00:22:03.500 --> 00:22:05.539 put it in there. And then, again, we retrace 00:22:05.539 --> 00:22:08.190 our steps to remember the number. And if you've 00:22:08.190 --> 00:22:11.840 taken the time to create the person, action, and 00:22:11.840 --> 00:22:14.760 objects that we did for the playing cards, then 00:22:14.760 --> 00:22:17.350 the same exact compression can be used here too. 00:22:17.350 --> 00:22:21.190 So you can memorize a binary number like this, 00:22:21.190 --> 00:22:24.350 which is huge, in a single image. This is 00:22:24.350 --> 00:22:28.380 one image. So when someone memorizes something like, you 00:22:28.380 --> 00:22:32.309 know, fifty-thousand binary digits, it's not quite as impressive 00:22:32.309 --> 00:22:34.080 when you realize this is a single image in 00:22:34.080 --> 00:22:36.340 their memory palace. The way this words is you 00:22:36.340 --> 00:22:38.409 can break it down, just like you might imagine. 00:22:38.409 --> 00:22:41.770 So zero zero one is one. Zero one zero 00:22:41.770 --> 00:22:45.230 is two. One one zero is six. One zero 00:22:45.230 --> 00:22:48.400 one is five. One one one is seven, and 00:22:48.400 --> 00:22:50.309 one zero zero is four. So we now we 00:22:50.309 --> 00:22:53.159 have three two digit numbers, which can either be 00:22:53.159 --> 00:22:56.100 three pictures or we could compress them, right, with 00:22:56.100 --> 00:22:59.380 person from the first, second an action, and action 00:22:59.380 --> 00:23:01.200 from the third into a single image. 00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:04.320 Well, it's not as difficult as it sounds. So 00:23:04.320 --> 00:23:07.600 I'm, I'm coming up on time, so I'm going 00:23:07.600 --> 00:23:10.720 to give you something to read in the future, 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:13.840 and that is this book here. This is by 00:23:13.840 --> 00:23:17.070 Dominic O'Brien, and he is the eight-time world memory 00:23:17.070 --> 00:23:20.590 champion. So he really, really knows his stuff. He's 00:23:20.590 --> 00:23:23.140 a horrible writer, but the techniques are, are, are 00:23:23.140 --> 00:23:25.620 very good. So he's gonna talk about everything we 00:23:25.620 --> 00:23:28.330 talked about today and then give a little, little 00:23:28.330 --> 00:23:30.289 bit of advice and like practice problems for some 00:23:30.289 --> 00:23:32.330 other techniques. But they all come from the same 00:23:32.330 --> 00:23:34.980 technique of using your, your spatial memory. 00:23:34.980 --> 00:23:36.549 Another book, if you're interested in competing, or just 00:23:36.549 --> 00:23:38.669 learning more about how competitions work, this is a 00:23:38.669 --> 00:23:40.679 very popular book that you may have already read. 00:23:40.679 --> 00:23:43.350 It's Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer, and he 00:23:43.350 --> 00:23:46.340 is a journalist that decided he'd start learning how 00:23:46.340 --> 00:23:47.970 to memorize and he ended up just winning the 00:23:47.970 --> 00:23:51.390 US Memory Championship, so it's, it's pretty impressive. 00:23:51.390 --> 00:23:52.940 That's it. I'm Chris Hunt in real life and 00:23:52.940 --> 00:23:54.580 on the internet. If you have any questions. Thank 00:23:54.580 --> 00:23:55.520 you.