Read your mind, p.21
Read Your Mind, page 21
This example demonstrates that memories are extremely fragile. On top of that, it takes a lot of energy to remember something, so your brain wants to forget, filtering out whatever it doesn’t consider necessary to conserve energy—and that is most things.
Memories are made every time you experience a new sensory activity, because this action forges a connection between your brain’s neurons. These connections are called synapses. Synapses are already present, but they’re reinforced when, say, you learn a better but more confusing way to come home from the store. The more you travel that new route, the more you remember the directions and the less confusing it becomes, until you can forget even taking it because you are thinking about something else. The good news is, your capacity to remember is practically unlimited, as your brain has eighty-six billion neurons.[2]
In the 1970s, Eric Kandel, a professor of biophysics at Columbia University, established that changes in the chemical signals between neurons are the biological basis for what makes a memory.[3] Kandel, who won a Nobel Prize for this discovery, went on to explain that the strength of a memory has to do with how often it’s revisited and repeated. The more you revisit a memory, the stronger it imprints.
What’s interesting is that our brains give precedence to certain memories. According to Ilker Yildirim, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale, “The mind prioritizes remembering things that it is not able to explain very well. If a scene is predictable, and not surprising, it might be ignored.” [4] This goes back to my point in an earlier chapter about the complexity of slipping into autopilot, which is why you’re less likely to recall an uneventful drive home from work versus when you’ve made the same trip in a raging snowstorm. If you’re in a learning environment, note that your brain also prioritizes information you study first (called the “primacy effect”) as well as what’s been most recently studied (called the “recency effect”).[5]
If you want to maximize your potential for preventing memory loss, understand that an active mind now will help stave off memory loss later. You’ve got to keep your brain busy and engaged. Researchers at Harvard University found that, in a study of participants with mild cognitive impairment, those who did crossword puzzles improved their cognition by a couple of points.[6] This is because crosswords are shown to connect short-term working memory with long-term permanent memory.[7]
While gaining a couple of points can sound paltry, this is the same amount of improvement they’d have seen from an FDA-approved memory-enhancing medication. So even a small increase is quite significant.
I also recommend practicing meditation because it’s linked to increasing cortical thickness in the brain, which decreases as we age. This is important because cortical thickness is linked to intelligence, meaning a thicker cortex means stronger brain function. Cortex thickness directly impacts our cognitive abilities, like problem-solving, memory, attention, and coming up with a snappy retort on the spot, instead of hours later when it doesn’t count. And another benefit is that meditation can reduce ruminative thinking—meaning when your brain gets stuck on repeat, amplifying negative thoughts again and again—which can improve the way we process our emotions.[8] So, with meditation, you can structurally alter the neuroplasticity of the brain, meaning you’ll create growth in the hippocampus, which basically impacts your memory capacity.[9]
We want to make your memory your superpower, and adopting healthier habits will give you that running start.
What’s in a Name?
Is there anything worse than forgetting someone’s name, especially mere seconds after you just met them? How mortifying is that? Say goodbye to that feeling because I have a virtually foolproof technique to prevent this from happening to you again. Here’s the kicker, though, you likely aren’t forgetting their name…you never actually knew it in the first place! Memory has very little to do with it, rather this is a listening issue.
Last year, I presented at a high-profile conference, speaking alongside Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings, Katie Couric, and Paris Hilton. I gave a workshop right before the main event and had twenty-three students in my breakout session. The plan was not only to amaze them with some mentalism, but also to show them the power of their own minds and how to supercharge their memories. I would tell each of them their names and what company they worked for as a fun and fast demonstration.
Again, lest you believe I have a photographic memory or supernatural powers, I can assure you that I do not. In fact, if you ask my wife how often I forget things around the house, she will have a field day on that topic!
So, as each person walked in the room, I asked them to please remove their name badges and place them into their pockets, which right away received a quizzical expression suggesting, “What in the world is this guy about to do?” Once everyone was seated, I did a quick, secret head count, because I wanted to make sure that if extra people had come in, I could account for them. I’m so glad I knew to do this, because two extra women came in who looked an awful lot like each other, and I’d have been so embarrassed if I got it wrong. I then proceeded to go around the room and rattle off each of their names. Ever the showman, it wasn’t enough to simply say their names, but I also added in the various companies they each worked for and some brand-specific jokes, too. Like, I said, “Sara, she works for Campari. Doesn’t matter if I have an Aperol Spritz or a Negroni later tonight; either way, you’re happy, right?” and everyone laughed.
As we got down to the last guy, I feigned panic like I couldn’t recall his name, and I said, “Oh no, give me a second.” Then I paused before saying, “How many of you have had this exact same feeling when you’re at a party, or even at a work event, and you literally just met someone three seconds ago? And you think, Uh-oh, what is their name? What did they just say? Now you’re sweating and your heart is pounding. You can’t hear anything they’re saying, because all you’re focused on is, What is their name, damn it? Not knowing is completely consuming you. It’s like you’re stuck in quicksand up to your knees and sinking fast. You have this awkward interaction where you’re trying to find a way to find out, because you’re too embarrassed to ask them their name again. Your eyes scour the room side to side hoping and praying you find someone you know to bring over and casually say, ‘Oh, do you guys know each other?’ and then pray to the Lord above that they spill the beans as they introduce themselves, and a flood of relief washes over you. Heaven help you if they say, ‘Yes, we know each other, great to see you again.’ You’re too panicked to even be mad at yourself for such an unnecessary stressor. So, how would that feel?”
Consensus? Everyone agreed they’d feel pretty bad.
Then, to the guy whose name I “forgot,” I said, “I bet that doesn’t feel so great for you right now, Russell, does it? But I know who you are, Russell. I would never forget you. I want you on my good side, because you work for Live Nation.” He sat last, and the whole thing brought down the house, and that’s how I opened up the session.
Nobody wants memory tools that will take days, weeks, or years to figure out. If you hear a name, you want to know now how to recall it. Like with that group, I want to teach you some tips and tricks that you can master in ten minutes and still be using ten years from now. Because forgetting someone’s name isn’t just embarrassing; it’s potentially damaging. In fact, researchers at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen found that forgetting someone else’s name can “create a downward spiral in which forgetting undermines investment in [that] relationship.”[10]
The group I’d been addressing at the conference that day were all chief marketing officers, so I wanted to use an example they could relate to. I said to them, “Everyone in the world has used shampoo, and it’s a marketer’s dream, because the instructions are simply three words. How can anyone get confused, much less forget those three simple words: lather, rinse, repeat. The repeat doesn’t even matter, but Pantene needs to sell some more product so best believe they want you to repeat. Say it to yourself, lather, rinse, repeat, and now say it again, and again. Repetition is our friend; it imprints info on our mind. We’re going to repurpose that three-word catchphrase into the following—Listen, Repeat, Reply—and you’ll never again forget the name of someone you just met!”
As a quick aside, not long ago, I had the opportunity to meet and perform for Barack Obama. I’ve never encountered somebody in my whole life who locks in better than he does. I watched him do a meet and greet for forty-five minutes, and with every single person that he spoke to, he acted like nobody else was in the room, even though people were circling him like a frenzy of sharks. Everyone in his peripheral vision was waiting for their chance to come over, but he did not look around. He did not do that rushing thing—you know, where you’re talking to somebody but they’re looking over their shoulder for who’s next. He didn’t do that at all. If he committed thirty, forty-five, or sixty seconds to you, you had his full attention. For him, that brief exchange was just a Tuesday at 8:07 p.m. But for everyone in attendance—myself included—those forty-five seconds are most likely ones that they will remember vividly and talk about for the rest of their lives. (No, I did not use my minute to ask if he’d gotten his paper-cutout silhouette from Sir Richard Branson, if you’re curious.)
When Obama meets you, he knows that the time he’s giving you is valuable. When he shakes your hand, he looks you right in the eye. He focuses on you. He looks into you, not just into your eyes. And he’s somebody who’s met countless numbers of people. What I’m describing him doing is a trick that so few people know…it’s called “listening.” Most of us don’t really do it.
What I want you to do, when you listen to another person, is to turn your mind off and truly hear. Easier said than done, as our mind rarely likes to be quiet. Instead, a hundred different thoughts could race through it, such as, What am I about to say next? Oh my God. Who is this person? Do I know them? But I want you to make your mind completely blank. I’m talking complete attention. We are going to actively listen.
When you go up to someone, tell yourself right now to do nothing but tune into them as they introduce themselves. I don’t mean tune in with your ears, I mean with every part of your brain; tune out your thoughts and truly hear the words that they say. And when they say their name, repeat it back to them immediately. Always repeat it. You should say, “Ashley, oh, I love that. Do you spell it A-S-H-L-E-Y, the traditional spelling? Yes? Great!” We’ll call this technique “Listen, Repeat, Reply.” Tear a page out of my playbook and pause right now: Quiet your mind and say it out loud three times: “Listen, Repeat, Reply; Listen, Repeat, Reply; LISTEN, REPEAT, REPLY.” Listen means you make your mind a blank. Doing so will exponentially increase your chances of remembering the name, especially if you follow up your attentive moment by repeating their name.
Here’s a great visual metaphor: Let’s say I gave you a stick and told you to go to the beach, to the damp sand right at the shoreline. When the water recedes from a wave, quickly write your name. If you do that one time and a wave comes by, it will probably sweep away the writing and there’d be nothing left. But if you take that stick and write your name, and then go over each letter a few more times, really pressing down with all your might, it will make a far deeper impression. Now it will take many waves to wash it away completely and leave no trace.
Brain science reveals that repetition solidifies memory because it leads to more stable representations in the cortex, meaning repetition shifts information from short-term to long-term memory.[11] The more times you can carve that person’s name into your mind, the less chance there is that it will get washed away by the tide. You will retain that information, I promise you. And you don’t need to retain it for life, but if you can retain it for the next minute, three minutes, five minutes, then you’ll avoid embarrassment, especially if you have a profession or a social life that involves meeting new people. And don’t most of us experience those situations? They might not be daily occurrences, and if they’re not, you’ve got all the more time to practice.
We’ve covered listen and repeat. As for reply, my advice falls into three different categories. The first one is spelling the name back to the person you’ve just met. Simply put, make sure that you are spelling it correctly. Next, comment on the spelling. “Is that Brian with a y or an i?” No matter the answer, I say, “Yes, that’s the best way to spell it for sure.” If their name has a very obvious spelling such as Bob or Bill, then I say, “I assume Bill is shortened from William, is that right? But you go by Bill?” Another way to comment on someone’s name is to pay them a compliment; everyone loves to be flattered. So when you reply, use their name in a compliment, and say something like, “Brian, I love those glasses. I’m just so curious, Brian, where did you get those?” You say their name again with the glasses. Now you think, Brian with the cool glasses. This gives you a psychological hook, an imprint that links someone’s name to how they look to you. Remember, our brains retain the thing that’s different. Think about if you meet somebody with one side of their head shaved and the other side is dyed blue. When they tell you their name, you’re likely to remember that person far more than attendees dressed in khakis and Patagonia vests who look like your cookie-cutter hedge fund managers. Finally, make a personal connection if there is one, or you’re welcome to lie and make one up as long as you won’t get caught later. Choose wisely in this case! For example, after meeting Brian, you could say, “Oh how funny, my cousin is married to a Brian!” Now is my cousin really married to a man named Brian? Absolutely not, I’m a total liar, but guess what? I also won’t forget that name now.
If instead of trying to just remember someone’s name, you need to remember a list of things, you can build a memory palace, a technique used in literature by the character Sherlock Holmes. To create your own memory palace, you first visualize a familiar space—it can be any place you go to or have been frequently—your childhood home, your office, or your favorite coffee shop. Then determine a course of travel through that place. In the example of your childhood home, maybe you enter through the living room, then walk through the dining room, kitchen, and family room to get to the back porch.
Once you have your place and your route mapped out, determine what it is you want to remember—say, the periodic table—and place each element along the way. If you start with hydrogen, you can picture a hydrogen-powered rocket ship on the sofa next to the front door, and then for lithium, a pack of batteries on the table. These can be found next to a salt shaker for sodium and a banana for potassium. You’ll have to be creative for the more difficult elements, but maybe next you can use a mnemonic device to imagine your pretty-but-not-smart cat lazing by the fireplace. You bend down to pet that cat, associating rubidium with the motion of “rubbing the belly of a dum-dum.” The more you walk through and explore your memory palace, the more that info will stick.
When I preselect people in my shows who I want to use for audience participation, I have to remember them, so I look for people wearing bright colors, big jewelry, bushy beards, etc. That way, if I’m in a crowd with hundreds or even thousands of people, and I’m onstage and I run out in the audience, I can spot them from far away.
While it can be harder to do when you’re with more people, these techniques still work. Let’s say you go up to a group and they introduce themselves, “That’s Megan, that’s Susan, that’s Bill, that’s Nathan, and I’m Adrian.” Too many people, right? I like giving compliments when it’s a smaller group, but this practice doesn’t scale. If you do compliment, saying, “Megan, love the earrings. Susan, where’d you get those pants? Bill, fantastic moustache. Nathan, I dig your watch. And, yo, Adrian, I loved Rocky,” you’ve tipped the balance from friendly to full-blown psycho.
If you’re in a larger group, take your time as you repeat their names. Make a joke out of it. Say, “Is there going to be a quiz later? You said you’re Megan. Megan, so good to meet you, and Susan. Susan, so great to meet you.” Say their names back three times. People appreciate this because it shows that you took the time and the effort to commit to knowing their names, which most people don’t do; that extra beat sets you apart.
As for those twenty-three marketers that day, how did I do it? Here’s the inside scoop: I don’t have an infallible memory. While I do work at it, it’s not something I need at my level. The night before my session, at the conference registration, they gave out little yearbooks with all the attendees listed and pictured. I went through and cut out their faces. I showed everyone in class these pseudo flash cards and thought there’d be a laugh or chuckle, but suffice it to say, I may have given light kidnapper vibes. I still found it funny and promise I use my powers strictly for good!
Because I always have a plan B, while I was brushing my teeth, I made piles of the faces that were easy to recall. Some people were simple to recall because they had unique names, features, or for whatever reason, their name matched their face in my mind. Sometimes a Bob just looks like a Bob. On my first round of quizzing myself, I identified eight or nine out of the twenty-three immediately.
As I practiced and made up jokes about them, more names began to gel and I added them to the “got” file. I repeated this while flossing—gotta keep that dental hygiene y’all—then while getting dressed, and packing up my things. (Put a pin in this: Your day is full of mentally empty moments that could be filled with some purpose.) I probably did four or five passes with my flash cards. By the time I was ready to go, I had twenty-one or twenty-two of the names down 100 percent. The last two or three were more of a struggle, so I said them over and over with rapid-fire delivery.
