OoM 049： Building Your Memory Muscle with Anthony Metivier
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Summary
Anthony Medvere is the founder of Magnetic Memory Method, a system that is a 21st century approach to memorizing foreign language, dreams, names, music, poetry, and so much more. He teaches the techniques and strategies for building better memories, a skill all of us can use to be more credible, effective, and influential in our lives.
Transcript
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We've all had that awkward experience where we needed to remember somebody's name and we just
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couldn't. Or perhaps you've been prepping for a speech, interview, or presentation and you just
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cannot remember that story that you wanted to share. My guest today, Mr. Anthony Medivere,
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teaches us the techniques and strategies for building better memories, a skill all of us
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can use to be more credible, effective, and influential in our lives. You're a man of action.
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You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks
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you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated,
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rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become
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at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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What is up, men? My name is Ryan Michler. I am the founder of Order of Man. If you're new to the
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podcast today, you need to know that we talk about all things manly here on the show. Leadership,
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self-mastery, relationships, wealth, business, health, so much more. Basically, all of the
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manly conversations you want to have rolled up in one place. Now, today, we're talking about a
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topic that we have not yet covered, and that is memory and how valuable developing a better memory
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can be in your life. Now, before I get too much into the conversation today, I do want to give you
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my weekly reminder of our Elite Mastermind, The Iron Council. I'm sure that you've heard about it by
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now, especially if you've been listening to the podcast for any amount of time, so I won't go into all
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the details. But one thing I will tell you is that we've built in some fitness accountability this
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week. Primarily, we're going to be challenging each other to fitness goals and holding each
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other's feet to the fire. And also, this week's conversation in The Iron Council is all about
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business, starting a business, taking on a new project, or turning that side project into an
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income stream. So, if this is on your mind, like I know it is for so many of the guys listening to
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this show, go to orderofman.com slash Iron Council to get all the details and join us there. Now,
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let's get into the show today. Remember, you can find all the links, the resources,
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and the discussion at orderofman.com slash 049. And of course, join the conversation we're having
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with over 2,300 men in our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash order of man.
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Now, my guest today is Mr. Anthony Medivere. He is the founder of Magnetic Memory Method,
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which is a system. It's a 21st century approach to memorizing foreign language, dreams, names,
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music, poetry, so much more. Anthony creates memory training for a variety of people who need a number
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of different memory needs. But what separates Anthony from other authors on memory skills and
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development is that he doesn't focus on these long strings of digits or training for memory
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championships. It's all about simple techniques for memorizing information that will change your
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daily life for the better. There's no hype in his trainings, just techniques that work.
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Anthony, thanks for joining me. I appreciate you being on the show today.
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Yeah, thanks for having me. It's very exciting.
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So what got you into memory and teaching this and learning about this? I'm really curious how
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a person gets into this discussion and conversation.
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Well, there are many ways to get into it, but in my case, it was absolute desperation
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because I was in grad school at the time. I think everybody knows that there are memory techniques,
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but I never would have thought about it as a solution to a situation I'd found myself in,
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which was really deep clinical depression, taking pills while I was supposed to be preparing for
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field exams for my PhD and coming up with a dissertation topic. So instead of taking action
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like reading books, which I couldn't because my mind was so fogged up and I couldn't remember
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anything I was reading, I started playing with what I have often referred to as my emergency paycheck,
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which is magic tricks. And I started envisioning myself going out on the streets and performing
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in order to make my bread and butter. And at a certain point, I came across the idea of a
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memorized deck. And it's one of the holy grails of magic, like legitimately memorizing a deck rather
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than just having memorized parts of it and creating the illusion that you've memorized it. And I thought
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it was impossible. I can't even read a simple book, but I tried it. I followed the instructions and
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lo and behold, 15 minutes later, I memorized the whole deck and could recall it. A little bit of
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stumbling, but it was still incredibly easy and unbelievable. So I instantly saw how I can apply
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this to all of my graduate studies. I still had concentration problems, so I just made audiobooks of
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these really difficult books. And then I put the key points on index cards, created memory palaces,
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memorized all that stuff, and went and aced. I was the first person to complete the PhD in my program,
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which was a new program that I had started. And it was really exciting. And I still felt like hell
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the whole time. But I still, at least I could rely on my memory. So it was cool.
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So did you learn these techniques and develop these techniques on your own? Or did you
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find these somewhere else and build upon what other people had already done and what you had learned
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about it? Yeah, no, it wasn't anything that I came up with myself at that time. It was through a
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program by a guy named Kevin Trudeau, who a lot of people, at least my age, would know him from these
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late night infomercials, where he was always going on and on about how to use his mega memory program.
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And you'd never get taught anything, but there were always these discussions about how well they
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worked. And that had been mentioned by a magician in a magical training. So I looked it up and went
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through the whole thing. And part of it was on card memorization, which is why it was recommended.
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But I didn't use the exact process that's described there, because it didn't really work
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out for me. And in all the years since, I've gone into the literature, read just about everything
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that I've found. There's a few things I still have on my reading list. But I've crafted a whole
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process for myself based on my understanding. And I've taught that to other people. And a lot of people
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have said, wow, that is, you know, genuinely a different way of thinking about things that gets
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results. If you want to follow those steps, and it can be a lot faster than than a lot of people have
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gotten through other means because of how I've designed it, which I can explain without, you know,
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being too mysterious about it. But it's really, it's a real monkey wrench approach that I've brought
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to it much more mechanical and systematic than a lot of the other books and video courses and audio
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programs talk about. I met a guy at FinCon financial bloggers conference a year or two ago. And he said
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that he could memorize up to 20 different numbers or something like that. I can't remember right off
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hand. But he said, just just create random numbers. And just tell me those numbers, write them down on a
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notepad. Tell me those numbers. So I wrote down 20 different numbers. I told him what those were. And he
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recited them back verbatim right back to me. And so it was so impressive. And he gave me a little bit
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of insight into how he did that. So I'm really excited to hear from you some of the techniques.
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I want to know first, before we get into that, how do you feel that this is applicable outside of maybe
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a magic trick and obviously studying for courses and college and tests and things like that? How else
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have you found improving your memory is applicable in life?
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Oh, it's everywhere, every day, all the time. My particular interest and expertise, so to speak, is with
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language learning, vocabulary memorization, memorizing phrases, memorizing things about the grammar points.
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But it can be numbers. You know, I've had experiences where I asked a girl for a phone number stupidly. I
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didn't even think of using these techniques. I pulled out my notebook. It was raining and all I saw when
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she gave it back was a blob. And then I said, wait a second, say, say, say your number a little
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bit slowly. Give me a second. And then it was her the next day when I called her. So, you know,
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it's that kind of thing that can that you can use them for. And you can use them to feel better.
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You know, you can actually sit down and meditate over what you've memorized and get a boost. There are
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certain chemicals that are created and released in the brain, one of which is norepinephrine.
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And it can give you a little bit of an emotional boost. So it's quite powerful in many, many
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different respects. There's names. There's nothing more empowering than being able to remember a
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person's name and make them feel extraordinarily special because you've memorized their name and
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you don't have to say, what was your name again? Like you can eradicate that need from your life.
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You just have to pay attention to their name and use a special technique, which is essentially
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creating an image that helps you recall that name. And that person feels honored and treasured.
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And even if it isn't on the surface that they're like, oh, I can't believe you remembered my name.
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They'll still feel that. And that impact is huge.
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Yeah, I'm sure when when I look at somebody, whether I'm deciding if this is a person of
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credibility, somebody I can trust, somebody that I can follow, somebody that knows what they're
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talking about, all of those levels of influence, I'm sure memorization and the ability to recall
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facts and stories and names like you're talking about is extremely valuable when it comes to
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building influence in the eyes of other people as well.
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Yeah, absolutely. And just being able to make connections with your knowledge and be relatively
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quick about it is a way of establishing expertise, being interesting. And then you can be interested
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in other people at a much higher level because you're able to retain what they say to you.
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And also, because you're memorizing stuff, you're paying much closer attention. You're paying
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attention differently than you would if you're just sort of passively listening,
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or even passively interested listening, if you know what I mean. You're actually absorbing it into
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your mind. Tell me about the chemical that's released into your brain. I forgot what you called
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it. But I'm really curious as to how and why and the mechanics behind how that actually works when
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it comes to trying to recall facts and stories and things like that.
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Yeah, well, there's several chemicals. But one of the major ones is norepinephrine. And it's key to
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the formation of memory. And so one way to think about it is, is that it's released in novel
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situations. So there's a there's like the airport effect where you can remember very clearly having
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arrived in a new country or a new city. And that's because it's a novel situation. And this chemical is
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really kicking in at that point. Also, when a new baby arrives, and so forth, you remember these certain
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moments that are so vivid and clear. And that has to do with a high level of norepinephrine. So that's,
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that's part of it. But there's, there's other other chemicals, serotonin and so forth that are that are
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involved in this, and they're very key to the formation of memory. One way to think about how memories are
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formed and how they're retained, is that the brain is kind of like a or the the memory parts of the
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brain have a kind of neighborhood sensibility to them. So memories are not just like one memory is
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not just one thing that goes into the brain, it's split up and divided into different houses in this
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neighborhood. And as the memory ages, it will move in, it'll it'll move house, it will actually go from,
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you know, your uncle's house to your sister's house, and then it might build its own house
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somewhere. And so the equality of the chemicals that are involved, at the moment of acquiring that
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information that becomes a memory, says a lot about where in the, where in the neighborhood of
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memory, it winds up, it is wind up at, you know, street Y, or street X, or in another city, or how does
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that all work has to do a lot with what your chemical state is at the time that you encounter
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information. And that's why you can rig it and hack it to a certain extent. And you probably heard
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things like where people eat a banana while they're studying and then eat a banana again, before they
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actually take the exam. And that's kind of based on that idea that our chemical states are, can be
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lined up to give a boost in recall. Interesting. So that was my next question. We're going to get into
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some of the tactics and tricks maybe, but I want to know if there's anything outside of the,
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the things that you learn, the ways to memorize and the strategies to memorize more information,
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exercise, does that improve it? Does diet improve it? What are some of these outside factors that
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can improve your memorization if there is any? Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, there's the, the,
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the fitness that comes from being well exercised and well fed and well hydrated is critical. So you can
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have all the memory techniques in the world, but you won't get nearly as much out of them. If you
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don't have a well hydrated brain, for example, because your brain actually shrinks when you're
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not well hydrated. So, you know, there's a lot of health benefits for coffee, but not necessarily
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for memory. Although some people have claimed that it is good for memory. So we're not entirely clear
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what it is, but one thing is for sure is that it shrinks the brain. And a lot of people drink coffee
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first thing in the morning and they don't drink enough water. So they're shrinking and already
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shrunken brain. And then they wonder why they don't have so much focus during the day.
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And that's one reason. So if you have all things together, fitness and nutrition and hydration,
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then you already have a memory advantage. And these techniques will just work that much better for
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you. Interesting. Tell me about the difference between short-term memory and long-term memory,
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because I think I have the ability to memorize facts very quickly, but then I'm also, it seems like
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I purge those things from my mind very quickly as well. So how does the differences between short and
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long-term memories work? Well, short-term memory is also called working memory. And it involves
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being able to juggle a set number of information types or pieces, and they need to be translated
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into mid-term memory or long-term memory. And it all has to do with what it is. It can involve
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procedural memory, or it can involve episodic memory. And there are several other forms of memory
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that are in play. So what working memory or short-term memory means is very context-driven.
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So those facts that you might be able to hold on to for a certain period of time before they slip away,
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the extent to which you can hold on to them may have to do with whether they belong to procedural
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memory or episodic memory, for example. So translators who have to juggle multiple languages
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at the same time and hold long phrases in their mind as they're translating to another language,
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they have become exceptionally good at short-term memory in order to actually be able to do that.
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But that's in that context. Whether or not they have that ability at a restaurant taking an order or
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tracking the order that was given at a dinner party, I don't know. I don't know if they'd have a special
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advantage because that's a different kind of memory.
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So it sounds like a lot like a muscle that you can exercise and you can build and you can strengthen
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and you might be strong in one area but not so strong in another area.
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Yeah, exactly. And so when you're thinking about improving memory, one of the things that you want
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to do is identify something about your memory type. So there are exercises that help you determine
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more about your particular memory style. And it's not that there are huge extremes between one person
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or another. But I'm sure we're all aware of people who are more visual and more auditory and more
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kinesthetic and more conceptual and those kinds of things. So if you can really get some understanding
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of how you operate in those representation centers, then you can leverage that to your advantage by
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going to those kinds of tools first when you're using memory techniques.
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So is there one that's one of those styles, whether it's visual or auditory, that has proven
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to be more effective than another? Or is it completely dependent upon the person?
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Well, the one thing that I think applies most across the board is the memory palace technique
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because we all have fundamentally spatial memory abilities that are more or less the same.
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A lot of people will not necessarily feel that they have that same capacity, but you couldn't
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walk from your bathroom to your kitchen if you didn't have spatial memory. And we can all pretty
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well picture the relationship between our bed and the TV in the living room. So that's one of the
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basic foundations of all memory techniques is using what you already remember to rest what you don't
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remember on top of. And so that's why memory palace has lasted so many years, like more than 2000 years
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as a key core technique. And all the rest falls into place once that you've learned how to use that,
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It sounds like, and I don't know about memory palace, so I want to get into that, but it sounds like
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it's an efficient way for your brain to function. The more that it does something and the more that it
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can just do it naturally without having to recall that information so quickly, the more that it can
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focus on other, maybe more important tasks. Is that right?
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Yeah, absolutely. I believe that all memory is fundamentally spatial one way or the other.
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So if I were to ask you to recall what your mother looks like, you could probably just,
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if you think about it, you could point to a part of your brain where you feel that memory coming.
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It would be, you know, your forehead or the back of your head. And then if you were to compare
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that to what you remember, I don't know, Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan looks like, you may find
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that you have the sensation of where that memory comes in a different part of your brain. So you can
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experiment with that. And there's a spatial element to where our memories are. So it's really fascinating.
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How does one find out or identify the type of learning and memorization that's going to be most
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effective for them? Again, whether it's visual or auditory, how does somebody go about identifying
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that information so they can use it to their advantage?
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Well, experimentation is the key thing. So a lot of it has to do with being able to create images.
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And if you really struggle with images, then you know that that might not be your strong point.
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But before you give up with them, you can think about images in a different way. So you don't
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necessarily have to see them in your mind. Or you can go to sound and see if it helps you to imagine
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certain sounds going on in a particular action. Like maybe you don't see Godzilla's foot crushing
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down on a car, but you can hear it and you can latch onto that auditory sensation, what it must look
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like for that car to be crushed by his foot, even though you're not seeing it.
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Yeah, right. So just experiment and see how you're recalling the information that you're trying to
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Yeah. One of the things that breaks my heart is that so many people who offer memory training,
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memory books, and so forth, they use the word system as if there's some kind of system that
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someone can just pick up and download into their head and boom, the matrix, we now know memory
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techniques. But it doesn't work that way. And I'm very deliberate about calling what I teach a method
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because it's a method that allows you to create your own systems as opposed to some system that
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is going to solve everything. It's all experimentation. There's nothing outside of
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experimentation. Even if you just want to think about experimentation as experiential practice,
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it's getting in there and doing it. And that's really how you learn it. And that's not to be
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mystical or woo or like a guru or anything like that. But it's fishing. You are not fishing until you
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have the reel in your hands and the hook in the water and you feel what it's like to have a fish
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on your line. And then you go through the process of learning how to reel it in,
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get it in the boat, and now you got a fish in your boat. And memory techniques are exactly that way.
00:19:45.420
Right. You know, what's interesting is I continue to have the discussions with men on this podcast.
00:19:51.020
This is nothing new. Yet we as human beings, not just men, human beings in general, are always trying
00:19:56.720
to shortcut the system, whether it's memorization techniques like you're talking about, or the one that
00:20:00.720
comes to mind is diet and exercise and fitness fads. But at the end of the day, it's really a matter of
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us taking action, putting information into practice so that we can develop and build muscles and all of
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those things. So I completely agree and understand exactly what you're saying. You have to get out there
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and do the work to make it work for you. Yeah. But in the case of memory techniques, unlike other
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forms of fitness, as you've mentioned, there is almost something like a magic bullet. You just have to
00:20:30.360
put the magic beans in the ground first so that you grow the magic plants that have the magic bullets
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to put in the magic gun. And then you can, I mean, we know this, that there's all sorts of memory
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champions. There's a record was just broken for memorizing a deck of cards under 20 seconds. And
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if that isn't magic, I don't know what is. But it is one of those things where if you just get it,
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then miracles can happen. I have a student who did a thousand words in six weeks of a very difficult
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language. And so there are miracles available, but you do have to experiment. And it's not so it's
00:21:04.520
not really even a case that it's hard work. It's just the willingness to get dirty and go through
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all the way. This is exciting because there's some poems and some speeches that I'm, I want to
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memorize. So I'm sure I'll be able to use some of your, your strategies to be able to implement
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some of that. And I look at these guys who do, you know, cowboy poetry, for example, or men that can
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recall story word for word or poems word for word is incredible to me. So I'm excited to learn some
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of this stuff. Yeah. And it's much easier than it seems once to, once you get the hang of it.
00:21:37.720
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We really enjoy this show and we think you will as well. Now back to my interview with Anthony
00:22:40.260
Medivere. So talk to me about the memory palace. I'm not familiar with that. And I'm sure a lot of
00:22:46.400
people are not familiar with that. They're listening to this as well. Talk to me a little bit about
00:22:49.540
what that is and the context behind it. Okay. Well, legend has it that a guy named Simonides
00:22:54.940
on the island of Kos in ancient Greek was giving a speech, or sorry, not in ancient Greek, in ancient
00:23:00.780
Greece. He was giving a speech in ancient Greek, uh, in a banquet hall. And well, there's different
00:23:08.160
variations of the story, but in each of the variations, he's called out of the banquet hall and
00:23:13.620
a earthquake or something causes the building to collapse and everybody dies except for him because
00:23:18.800
he's not in it. But he had memorized the name of every person in there and could remember where
00:23:24.620
they were sitting. So he was able to help the authorities identify the bodies and that helped
00:23:29.160
bring solace to all the families. And so that is the, is the origin in the West of location-based
00:23:37.200
memory techniques. The idea that you can associate a piece of information with a particular location.
00:23:43.440
Now it's actually older than that. There are ancient Buddhist rituals where they would use
00:23:48.800
the parts of the temple to help them recall certain parts of a meditation. Uh, but nonetheless,
00:23:55.120
we in the West have that as the origin of the memory palace. And so it's a very, very powerful
00:24:00.360
technique and it has stood the time, uh, the test of time. And so we even have it as a marker in our
00:24:06.480
language. So we often say in the first place and in the second place and in the third place,
00:24:10.820
we've, uh, we've inherited that from the ancient Roman orators who gave their speeches. And when
00:24:17.360
they said in the first place, they're referring to the first thing they remembered in a memory palace.
00:24:22.600
You know, I've actually used this technique. I didn't even know this before, but I've actually
00:24:25.800
used this. So I, I was preparing for a speech and I picked up a memory CD or a speech CD, something
00:24:32.580
along those lines. And what they said is they said to identify certain things in a room in order.
00:24:40.480
So just to the left of the door, and then you go all the way around the outside of the wall. So
00:24:44.360
I'm looking at my room here. I've got the door, then I've got the desk, then I've got the closet.
00:24:47.880
I've got another desk, I've got a chair, I've got a couch, another desk and a picture. And they said
00:24:54.660
to try to associate whatever the point of the, the, the speech that you're giving associated with
00:25:01.380
the first element of the room and just move around the room according to the points that you want
00:25:05.860
to illustrate. And is that making sense? Is that along the right lines?
00:25:09.580
Yeah, that's a, that's exactly what a memory palace is. And there's different words for it.
00:25:14.700
Some people call it the Roman, the Roman room method, or some people call it a mind palace,
00:25:19.500
or I had someone who said they couldn't even get, get into this because they hate the word memory
00:25:24.560
palace or the term memory palace. So I said, we'll call it apartments with compartments if you want.
00:25:28.440
And, uh, and, uh, actually that was his term to me. And I said, great, whatever, just don't get hung
00:25:33.000
up on the terminology. It's just associating information with spots in, in, in a, in a room.
00:25:39.360
Why didn't he like that word memory palace? I'm just curious.
00:25:42.340
Well, you know, I have to admit that once he, once he mentioned that it does sound a bit airy fairy,
00:25:46.700
it does seem kind of, you know, surreal and mystical and not something that, you know, maybe,
00:25:53.640
you know, maybe grown men want to play around with, but, uh, I like it. I think it's a very
00:25:59.460
elegant term for it. And I associate something, I don't associate palace with Cinderella. I think
00:26:05.660
of it as something, uh, palatial, like a very powerful, something that belongs to an empire.
00:26:11.720
So, uh, but I, I just use that term cause that's the one I learned first. And Sherlock Holmes used
00:26:17.200
mind uses mind palace. Um, everything goes as long as you don't get hung up on it and see the power
00:26:22.800
of location based mnemonics basically. Well, I think there's an important lesson there because
00:26:27.680
I think a society more so than ever in this society of being politically correct, we get so
00:26:31.960
caught up in these words and what they mean. And somebody completely tunes out to amazing
00:26:36.600
information because they're hung up on the words. And at the end of the day, it doesn't really
00:26:39.480
matter. Call it whatever you want, but use the principles cause it's going to work for you.
00:26:42.980
Yeah. It's like not taking a roller coaster because it's called, you know, Mr. Toad's wild ride
00:26:48.440
instead of space mountain, you know, I'd much better be in space mountain because Mr.
00:26:52.540
Toad is an awesome ride and you're going to miss out on it. If you think it's just for
00:26:55.820
kids cause it's named Mr. Toad. It is an awesome ride. I'm glad you say that. Cause
00:26:59.760
I agree with you on that. I like that ride too. It's like the best. So tell me what are
00:27:05.440
some of the basic strategies or techniques that you teach to help people? I don't even
00:27:10.040
know if this is a fair question because there's probably so many different contexts where we're
00:27:13.220
trying to learn and memorize facts. Are there some strategies that go across information
00:27:19.760
and whatever it is you're trying to memorize? One of the things that's very interesting about
00:27:23.780
teaching these techniques is it sometimes sounds like you're trying to help people build a jet
00:27:27.360
engine. Um, so it doesn't sound as easy as it is, but basically what you, the common denominator,
00:27:34.160
the thing that, uh, binds it all together is that you're going to take information that you don't
00:27:39.780
know and you're going to associate it with what you do know. And you're going to use what you do
00:27:43.920
know in such an extreme way that it's going to make what you don't know very, very easy to remember
00:27:49.260
to bring back to your mind. So to go back to short-term memory and long-term memory,
00:27:55.500
if you take a piece of information that is very forgettable because you're not familiar with it,
00:28:01.700
but you get Al Pacino to bite it and to hit it over Robert De Niro's head, then it's in a context
00:28:10.200
and it's, it's stuck onto it. It's glued onto it. It's absorbed into it. It becomes microwaved into
00:28:16.700
it and whatever metaphors you want to use. And then it, it has purchase. So you don't, you know,
00:28:21.840
often we say that you, you learn by making connections between things, but you don't have
00:28:26.800
to have those connections happen by accident. You can rig them and you can monkey wrench them into
00:28:32.060
place. So that's the common denominator is taking something and then associating it with
00:28:37.260
extreme versions of what you already know. So do you mind sharing with me how you would
00:28:42.820
memorize a deck of cards? I'm really curious about that. Yeah, sure. Um, it is a bit of a
00:28:49.800
procedure, but what you're going to do is you're going to associate each card with a number and then
00:28:55.060
each number using something called method or the major system is associated with a sound. So very
00:29:01.420
quickly. Zero is S one is D or T two is N three is M four is R five is L six can be a CH J G H or,
00:29:12.240
uh, uh, uh, yeah, the, those are the possibilities there or a sh sound SH and K is or seven is K eight
00:29:19.900
is F or V and nine is B or P. Now that sounds overwhelming to even learn in itself, right? But
00:29:25.020
it is because zero is like a snake eating its own tail. So S and D and T have a one shape inside of
00:29:31.480
them. And, you know, three is a mustache on its side. So it's not, it's not as overwhelming as it
00:29:36.560
sounds, but it is a kind of a nearly international code that, that neminists use to, to talk with each
00:29:43.480
other about how to memorize numbers. And you can really learn it in about 10 minutes if you, if you
00:29:48.080
want to, and just, you know, to remember that five is L, just look at your hand. You got an L shape
00:29:53.000
right there if you extend your thumb and five fingers. And so let's assume now that you've
00:29:58.600
got every card associated with a number and you know, the sounds in my particular approach
00:30:03.940
to this, the, uh, queen of spades is 22. And because two is N and I have two twos, then it's
00:30:12.160
an N. And so the, you want to then turn those sound, those consonants into a word and ideally
00:30:19.360
a word that you can see. So I have none for the, uh, the queen of spades. And so if the
00:30:26.900
king of, uh, of diamonds, which then due to the number system is going to be a three sound
00:30:34.000
and, uh, it ultimately comes, it's going to be 33. So it comes to an R sound and, uh, and
00:30:41.820
an M sound and, uh, and an R sound. So it's a Ram. So now I just need to see a nun doing
00:30:49.020
something to a Ram. Right. Interesting. Yeah. Now that makes sense. It's for the queen or
00:30:55.420
the king of diamonds is 43 in the number system, which is why you have R and M anyway, like
00:30:59.540
it gets a bit complex, but once you learn that stuff, you don't need the numbers anymore.
00:31:03.160
I just look at the queen, uh, the king of diamonds and I know it's a Ram. This is right. Second
00:31:07.720
nature. And so you just create this story and to use a memory palace to add that to the mix
00:31:12.540
for a deck of cards. I have four cars. Each car has 13 stations. Uh, a quarter of a deck
00:31:18.260
of cards is 13. And so I just follow these characters around deliberately chosen stations
00:31:25.440
on these four cars, which are the first cars that I owned and boom, that's a deck of cards
00:31:31.000
just like that. Once you, once you've had these characters interact with each other and you
00:31:35.080
can do it again and again and again, and they don't interfere with each other. And it's just
00:31:39.720
really good exercise for the mind. And it makes for a nice party trick and so forth. But I, I often
00:31:46.180
use it before I'm memorizing foreign language vocabulary, because we know from creativity
00:31:50.360
studies that if you do a small little creative exercise and then you do a bigger creative exercise,
00:31:56.440
then the second one that you do because you primed yourself is much more creative than if you
00:32:01.720
just went hard into the main exercise. This reminds me even really basic compared to what
00:32:07.620
you just talked about. My wife and I were having a conversation about the planets and I don't know
00:32:11.260
how we got talking about it, but, uh, we were trying to identify the planets and I told her,
00:32:15.500
Oh, it's just my vim shnup. And she's like, what do you mean? I'm like, Oh, that's how you
00:32:19.320
memorize it. Really? It's just the first letter of each planet. Right. And then you make a word out
00:32:23.840
of it with a sound and then you can always have that memorized in the order of the planet. So I can
00:32:28.300
see exactly how that would work. Yeah. It's, uh, it's not rocket science and it's a lot of fun.
00:32:34.300
Once you just, once you just get into it, how do you suggest somebody get good at memorizing names?
00:32:40.180
Because I think that's a skill that all of us as men should really develop. The first things are just
00:32:45.780
to pay attention to a person's name when you hear it. That's a huge part of the battle because we often,
00:32:52.000
it just goes right over our head. And even though I'm equipped with these techniques,
00:32:55.600
it sometimes happens too, you know, in the excitement of the moment meeting new people
00:32:59.520
or there's noises around, you won't get that name. But as long as you're paying attention,
00:33:03.980
you already have a fighting chance. And then when you get it, you can repeat it and say,
00:33:08.160
Oh, well, Peter, nice to meet you and shake their hand. So that's reinforcing it. But to really be
00:33:13.120
bulletproof, if it was Peter, then if you have an image in your mind of Peter, one of the disciples,
00:33:18.460
for example, you could have, you could have Peter, uh, and let's just say, for example,
00:33:24.580
sake that his last name was chili, which nobody's last name is chili, but that's just what's coming
00:33:28.400
to mind. But you see the disciple, Peter, you know, um, throwing chili off his shoulder,
00:33:35.580
for example. And if you knew that he, if he said, Oh, I just got back from Arizona or whatever,
00:33:42.540
then you could see, uh, you could think of someone that, you know, from Arizona or something that
00:33:48.160
comes to mind for Arizona, like the desert. And, uh, you could see the chili going over the desert
00:33:52.700
and, you know, remember certain facts going all the way down the person's arm. Um, right. But
00:33:58.520
the standard advice for memorizing names is to put that crazy image on their face, which I think is
00:34:03.520
terrible advice. You don't want to be looking at someone and seeing bizarre stuff when you're paying
00:34:08.360
attention to their eyes. You want to just pay attention to their eyes. So I always suggest put it
00:34:12.000
behind them or on their shoulder so that, uh, you're engaging with them and not seeing weird
00:34:17.580
stuff on their face. Interesting. I like that. I'm going to have to use that. Uh, especially
00:34:21.920
some of the networking events that I go to, I think it's critical. We learn people's names and
00:34:25.220
be able to recall that when we see them again, it's very, really, really valuable. Yeah. How
00:34:28.800
about, uh, how about some ticks, uh, tip can't talk here techniques for memorizing or preparing for
00:34:35.980
some sort of presentation, whether that's a speech that you're going to be giving or an assignment
00:34:41.860
that you're giving or a talk at church? How can you suggest somebody prepare for that when it comes
00:34:47.140
to memorizing what it is they want to talk about? Well, the typical go-to technique is to have a
00:34:52.280
memory palace because as you're talking, you can move from place to place in your mind and trigger
00:34:58.580
off what it is that the, the key points. And if you want to do verbatim, you can do that as well.
00:35:04.220
But well, a good example, a friend of mine named Jonathan Levy, he used the approach that I teach for a
00:35:10.340
recent Ted talk that he gave and he actually had the memory palace that he drew, which has all the
00:35:15.580
trademarks of how I teach memory palaces up on the screen. So I was very, very proud to have that
00:35:20.660
featured, but, uh, he, so he's demonstrating or he has the very same memory palace that he used to
00:35:27.400
give the speech that he was giving on the visible on the screen. And all he did was he walked around
00:35:33.140
the house in his mind, triggering off images that he'd created, which I was horrified at one point to
00:35:38.500
learn involved his parents' bedroom in a particular way. So we had a good, we had a good laugh about
00:35:43.100
Oedipus and all that stuff. But, uh, but yeah, it's just, these radical images are triggering in
00:35:48.980
his mind, everything that he wanted to say as he moves from the couch to the table, to the chair.
00:35:54.080
And I don't have any speeches memorized, but to give people a very clear example of how this works in
00:35:58.800
my experience is I really love the Iliad by Homer. And the Iliad opens just as a quick example with
00:36:06.320
of Peleus' son Achilles, sing, O muse, the vengeance deep and deadly whence degrees unnumbered
00:36:11.720
ills arose. And that's actually one particular translation. So if you look that up, look for
00:36:16.320
the Dryden translation because others have different words, but to remember that. So Peleus, um,
00:36:23.500
is the, is the father of Achilles. So I see Brad Pitt kicking a garbage pail. This is in the office of a
00:36:30.840
school where I used to work. He's kicking a garbage pail. So Peleus. Peleus, right.
00:36:36.220
Of Peleus' son Achilles, sing, O muse. The pail is hitting the Statue of Liberty who's now outside
00:36:41.240
the door of this small little room. And she's so angry about this that she's digging with a shovel
00:36:47.280
into the dirt. There's no dirt there. It's just a carpet, but she's digging in anyway and angrily
00:36:52.520
throwing the dirt past a map of Greece on the wall. There really isn't a map of Greece on the wall,
00:36:57.580
but nonetheless there is in this memory palace. And I'm standing at the door of my former office
00:37:02.020
and I'm wiping away numbers from a chalkboard and getting really annoyed that there's dirt in my
00:37:07.180
face. And so that helps me remind, remember the last thing of unnumbered ills, right? Um,
00:37:13.240
because I'm unnumbering in the image and I only had to go through that image twice and I never forgot
00:37:18.700
that opening line again. Right. And you're still talking about it now, how long ago that actually
00:37:25.140
was, right? Yeah. And I, you know, I, I, I did it, I've used it as demonstration many, many times,
00:37:32.480
but you know, that's the kind of thing I'm not such a big numbers guy, but it's the kind of thing
00:37:36.660
where I can basically, you know, often do that on the fly with certain sentences. And, and I was at
00:37:43.780
the polyglot gathering in Berlin and I really had to be on fire that whole weekend because people would
00:37:49.080
come up to me and they'd say, Hey, how about this phrase in some language I didn't even know existed?
00:37:52.500
Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah. You get tested all the time. I'm sure.
00:37:56.520
Yeah. And I've talked with other memory people like memory champs and they're just like, yeah. And
00:38:01.140
you know, it's hard to be on all the time, but it is possible. And, uh, so it's, it's something that
00:38:08.520
even when you're, when you're tired and not feeling so well, you can still, you can still get by,
00:38:14.020
you can get a lot of steam out of it because it's just mechanics.
00:38:16.920
Anthony, this has been such a good conversation. I really know that this is applicable in every
00:38:22.200
area of life. And so I know a lot of guys need to, uh, learn more about this and figure out how
00:38:26.920
to memorize and it's going to help their credibility and their influence. Uh, as we're winding down,
00:38:30.920
I want to ask you a question and we haven't even really had this conversation today, but since you're
00:38:35.440
listening to the podcast, you understand this question is coming and that is what does it mean
00:38:39.780
to be a man? Well, I, I think of two things when, when you ask that and, uh, and when I've heard
00:38:47.800
other people answer it on your show. And the first is just to say yes to life in every possible way.
00:38:53.940
And, uh, the other is to not overthink saying yes to life because we do that too much. We just
00:38:59.300
overthink things. And, you know, I, I have overthought memory, but at the end of the day,
00:39:04.960
when it comes down to using these techniques, it's all about not overthinking it and just going with
00:39:09.480
what comes first. And I think that's applicable to a lot of things in life.
00:39:13.760
Anthony, how do we connect with you? I mean, we have literally just scratched,
00:39:16.660
not even made a dent, just scratched the surface of all the information I know you have to share
00:39:20.700
and all the information that we should be consuming as men. How do we connect with you?
00:39:24.500
How do we learn more about what you're doing to get our, and our, get our hands on some of the
00:39:27.640
information that you share? Well, for your listeners, I've created a special set of videos and some
00:39:33.000
worksheets that will help you build a memory palace. You can actually type into them to actually,
00:39:37.940
you know, create a sort of a, a flow of what the stations would be in your memory palace. And I
00:39:43.360
have some example drawings and so forth, and some videos that walk you through everything and
00:39:47.720
basically all that you need to know. And for that, you would just need to go to magnetic
00:39:51.840
memory method.com forward slash order of man. And that's just one word order of man.
00:39:57.680
Awesome. Anthony, we'll make sure we, uh, we link up the show notes, uh, we, with that link and we'll
00:40:02.520
get some people your way. I know this is very valuable. I'm going to be checking that stuff out as
00:40:05.700
well. I appreciate you. And I appreciate your time coming on the show today.
00:40:11.400
There you have it guys. Mr. Anthony Medivere sharing with us how to build our memory muscle.
00:40:15.760
Now quick reminder, head over to order of man.com slash iron council. So you can get all the details
00:40:19.940
on our elite mastermind. You will want to be a part of this. If you're ready to take your life to the
00:40:24.260
next level, if you're wanting to build some solid relationships with other men and have some more
00:40:27.880
accountability in your life. And then last thing, if you want some additional resources for the show
00:40:31.680
today, head to order of man.com slash zero four nine and join the conversation. Also that we're
00:40:36.680
having about masculinity on our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash order of man guys.
00:40:42.140
I look forward to talking to you next week, but until then take action and become the man you were
00:40:46.280
meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your
00:40:51.680
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