How to Remember Anything: The Proven Total Memory Retention System (22 page)

See the
ash
(
a6
) with a
b
ea
r
(
b4
) in it!

See the
b
ea
r
(
b4
) with an
a
w
n
ing (
a2
) on it!

See the
a
w
n
ing (a2) with a
c
o
m
b (
c3
) on it!

See the
c
o
m
b (c3) with a
b
oa
t
(
b1
) on it!

See the
b
oat (
b1
) with a
d
e
n
(
d2
) in it!

See the
d
e
n
(
d2
) with foa
m
(
f3
) in it!

See the
f
oa
m
(
f3
) with an
e
e
l
(
e5
) in it!

See the
e
e
l
(
e5
) with a
d
a
m
(
d3
) on it!

See the
d
a
m
(
d3
) with
c
oa
l
(
c5
) on it!

See the
c
oa
l
(
c5
) with an airplane (
a4
) on it!

See the
a
i
r
plane (
a4
) with a
b
ea
ch
(
b6
) on it!

See the
b
ea
ch
(
b6
) with
af
tershave (
a8
) on it!

Cover the list and look at the first coordinate and word. It translates to the coordinate at the left. Recall the next word and its coordinate, and so on. Uncover to check your answers:

The link you have just completed will give you the “address” (coordinate) of each move to place the Knight into all sixty-four squares of the chessboard. To practice, draw a square on a piece of paper, chalkboard, or flip chart. Divide the square in half, both horizontally and vertically. That will give you four squares. Divide the four squares in half both horizontally and vertically. That will give you sixteen squares. Divide the remaining squares in half both horizontally and vertically. That will give you sixty-four squares, the number of squares on a chessboard.

You may think it is unnecessary to illustrate a method for dividing a large square into sixty-four squares, but if you ever demonstrate the Tour of the Knight in public it is best to know that the squares are all going to be at least approximately the same size.

At first, you may want to complete the exercise yourself (that is, while looking at the squares). Soon, however, you should allow someone else to mark the squares while you move the Knight without looking at the board.

When someone else marks the squares for you, tell them to put a dot in the center of the upper left square (a8) and to place their point finger on the dot. Then, tell them to put a dot at the center of the square at c7 and draw a straight line to connect the two dots. They should then place their point finger on the dot at c7 and wait for you to tell them where to put the next dot.

Continue the process until you complete the exercise. You will end on the same square on which you began. Because the tour makes a complete circuit, you can start and finish on any square.

Whether or not you play chess, this is an excellent mental exercise both for memory and to develop your power of concentration. Too often, there are those who allow their minds to coast. They don’t exercise their minds because no one has ever taught them how to do it.

I challenge you to exercise your mind every day just as you should exercise your body. Mental exercise is just as important as physical exercise. In fact, long after you have lost the stamina for strenuous physical activity, you can still have the mental strength and alertness to outdistance those who failed to develop the power of their minds. I encourage you to exercise your mind and your body in order to develop and maintain both physical and mental fitness.

You may wish to draw about six chessboards on a standard 8
1/2
-by-11 sheet of paper and then have some copies made in order to practice this most beneficial exercise.

Step 9

HOW TO REMEMBER NAMES

In seminars I have conducted for more than three decades, I always ask
students what particular area of their own memories they would most like to improve. At least 90 percent of them answer, “Remembering names!”

As I began compiling my years of experience in training students to remember, I got to the names section and came to a startling realization. On one hand, to give you all of the information needed to properly and adequately learn to remember names would require an entire volume on that subject alone. On the other hand, to give you nothing at all on names amounts to a serious omission from a book on memory-training.

I have chosen to treat the subject as fully as possible here, but with the understanding that there is a great deal more to learning how to become an expert at remembering names than I could do justice to in the relatively small space allotted. I can promise you, however, that your ability to recall names will increase tremendously with the information contained here.

While the techniques of learning to remember names are all here, what is missing is a comprehensive list of audionyms for names. Being prepared is the key to becoming adept at recalling names. Such a project really needs to be approached in greater detail by those motivated to do so.

The only thing that saves most of us from a life of total embarrassment is that most of the population is nearly equally inept when it comes to remembering names. That’s very sad. We escape embarrassment simply because hardly anyone else can remember names very well either.

Because the inability to recall names is such a universal failing, those whose names are forgotten by us are, perhaps, less wounded than they might be if nearly everyone were superbly talented in recalling names. But even in a world where people do not remember names very well, nobody ever quite likes it when his or her own name is forgotten. A small irritation is an irritation, nevertheless.

Most competitive games are won, not only on the skill of the players, but on the mistakes and lack of skill of the opponents as well. Negatives play as important a part in many sports—and businesses—as do positives. That goes for the small hurts and slights we inflict by forgetting names. The Chinese call this accumulation of affronts the “Death of a thousand razor cuts.” It’s reasonable to assume that one less negative in our business, social, or academic lives would give us just that much more of an advantage.

It takes relatively little time and effort to learn memory techniques and to apply them to remembering names. It is such an uncommonly applied skill that those who do employ it stand out from all the rest.

If you walk into a party and are introduced to several dozen people throughout the evening, how many are you able to go back to later and recall by name? If you are like most people, the answer is, not very many.

Suppose you were able to go back to an individual, whom you may have met an hour or more earlier, and say something like, “Waldo, I was wondering whether you might be related to the Pasadena Gumfdormacherheinzes?” To say the very least, that would certainly get his attention. And the chances are pretty good you will not merely have an interesting conversation, but will find yourself standing before a dumbfounded admirer.

You will have impressed the socks off Waldo, and will be forever held in high regard by him and everyone to whom he relates the story. Multiply this effect by not only remembering his name several hours later at a party but at some future meeting on a street, in a store, or in a business situation weeks, months—even years later: “Well, darned if it isn’t Waldo Gumfdormacherheinz. I haven’t seen you since Gilmore Xotzenoffer’s party in 2001.” Do that and you will become a person not to be forgotten yourself. That’s memory power.