Order of Man - OoM 049： Building Your Memory Muscle with Anthony Metivier

00:00:00.000 We've all had that awkward experience where we needed to remember somebody's name and we just

00:00:03.360 couldn't. Or perhaps you've been prepping for a speech, interview, or presentation and you just

00:00:08.060 cannot remember that story that you wanted to share. My guest today, Mr. Anthony Medivere,

00:00:12.620 teaches us the techniques and strategies for building better memories, a skill all of us

00:00:16.620 can use to be more credible, effective, and influential in our lives. You're a man of action.

00:00:21.620 You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks

00:00:26.960 you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated,

00:00:33.140 rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become

00:00:39.720 at the end of the day. And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:00:45.800 What is up, men? My name is Ryan Michler. I am the founder of Order of Man. If you're new to the

00:00:49.760 podcast today, you need to know that we talk about all things manly here on the show. Leadership,

00:00:53.220 self-mastery, relationships, wealth, business, health, so much more. Basically, all of the

00:00:57.740 manly conversations you want to have rolled up in one place. Now, today, we're talking about a

00:01:02.320 topic that we have not yet covered, and that is memory and how valuable developing a better memory

00:01:07.280 can be in your life. Now, before I get too much into the conversation today, I do want to give you

00:01:11.680 my weekly reminder of our Elite Mastermind, The Iron Council. I'm sure that you've heard about it by

00:01:16.580 now, especially if you've been listening to the podcast for any amount of time, so I won't go into all

00:01:20.440 the details. But one thing I will tell you is that we've built in some fitness accountability this

00:01:24.140 week. Primarily, we're going to be challenging each other to fitness goals and holding each

00:01:27.920 other's feet to the fire. And also, this week's conversation in The Iron Council is all about

00:01:32.160 business, starting a business, taking on a new project, or turning that side project into an

00:01:37.520 income stream. So, if this is on your mind, like I know it is for so many of the guys listening to

00:01:41.660 this show, go to orderofman.com slash Iron Council to get all the details and join us there. Now,

00:01:47.200 let's get into the show today. Remember, you can find all the links, the resources,

00:01:49.700 and the discussion at orderofman.com slash 049. And of course, join the conversation we're having

00:01:54.760 with over 2,300 men in our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash order of man.

00:02:00.740 Now, my guest today is Mr. Anthony Medivere. He is the founder of Magnetic Memory Method,

00:02:05.880 which is a system. It's a 21st century approach to memorizing foreign language, dreams, names,

00:02:10.960 music, poetry, so much more. Anthony creates memory training for a variety of people who need a number

00:02:17.140 of different memory needs. But what separates Anthony from other authors on memory skills and

00:02:21.980 development is that he doesn't focus on these long strings of digits or training for memory

00:02:26.860 championships. It's all about simple techniques for memorizing information that will change your

00:02:32.120 daily life for the better. There's no hype in his trainings, just techniques that work.

00:02:36.700 Anthony, thanks for joining me. I appreciate you being on the show today.

00:02:39.040 Yeah, thanks for having me. It's very exciting.

00:02:40.800 So what got you into memory and teaching this and learning about this? I'm really curious how

00:02:47.740 a person gets into this discussion and conversation.

00:02:51.100 Well, there are many ways to get into it, but in my case, it was absolute desperation

00:02:55.440 because I was in grad school at the time. I think everybody knows that there are memory techniques,

00:03:01.220 but I never would have thought about it as a solution to a situation I'd found myself in,

00:03:07.860 which was really deep clinical depression, taking pills while I was supposed to be preparing for

00:03:14.160 field exams for my PhD and coming up with a dissertation topic. So instead of taking action

00:03:21.740 like reading books, which I couldn't because my mind was so fogged up and I couldn't remember

00:03:26.520 anything I was reading, I started playing with what I have often referred to as my emergency paycheck,

00:03:32.300 which is magic tricks. And I started envisioning myself going out on the streets and performing

00:03:38.960 in order to make my bread and butter. And at a certain point, I came across the idea of a

00:03:45.140 memorized deck. And it's one of the holy grails of magic, like legitimately memorizing a deck rather

00:03:49.960 than just having memorized parts of it and creating the illusion that you've memorized it. And I thought

00:03:54.980 it was impossible. I can't even read a simple book, but I tried it. I followed the instructions and

00:04:00.440 lo and behold, 15 minutes later, I memorized the whole deck and could recall it. A little bit of

00:04:04.800 stumbling, but it was still incredibly easy and unbelievable. So I instantly saw how I can apply

00:04:10.960 this to all of my graduate studies. I still had concentration problems, so I just made audiobooks of

00:04:17.020 these really difficult books. And then I put the key points on index cards, created memory palaces,

00:04:22.340 memorized all that stuff, and went and aced. I was the first person to complete the PhD in my program,

00:04:28.180 which was a new program that I had started. And it was really exciting. And I still felt like hell

00:04:33.600 the whole time. But I still, at least I could rely on my memory. So it was cool.

00:04:39.060 So did you learn these techniques and develop these techniques on your own? Or did you

00:04:42.900 find these somewhere else and build upon what other people had already done and what you had learned

00:04:48.040 about it? Yeah, no, it wasn't anything that I came up with myself at that time. It was through a

00:04:55.080 program by a guy named Kevin Trudeau, who a lot of people, at least my age, would know him from these

00:05:02.680 late night infomercials, where he was always going on and on about how to use his mega memory program.

00:05:10.960 And you'd never get taught anything, but there were always these discussions about how well they

00:05:15.400 worked. And that had been mentioned by a magician in a magical training. So I looked it up and went

00:05:22.080 through the whole thing. And part of it was on card memorization, which is why it was recommended.

00:05:26.480 But I didn't use the exact process that's described there, because it didn't really work

00:05:31.160 out for me. And in all the years since, I've gone into the literature, read just about everything

00:05:37.140 that I've found. There's a few things I still have on my reading list. But I've crafted a whole

00:05:44.300 process for myself based on my understanding. And I've taught that to other people. And a lot of people

00:05:50.620 have said, wow, that is, you know, genuinely a different way of thinking about things that gets

00:05:56.780 results. If you want to follow those steps, and it can be a lot faster than than a lot of people have

00:06:03.280 gotten through other means because of how I've designed it, which I can explain without, you know,

00:06:07.800 being too mysterious about it. But it's really, it's a real monkey wrench approach that I've brought

00:06:12.640 to it much more mechanical and systematic than a lot of the other books and video courses and audio

00:06:18.480 programs talk about. I met a guy at FinCon financial bloggers conference a year or two ago. And he said

00:06:26.160 that he could memorize up to 20 different numbers or something like that. I can't remember right off

00:06:32.300 hand. But he said, just just create random numbers. And just tell me those numbers, write them down on a

00:06:37.120 notepad. Tell me those numbers. So I wrote down 20 different numbers. I told him what those were. And he

00:06:42.600 recited them back verbatim right back to me. And so it was so impressive. And he gave me a little bit

00:06:47.880 of insight into how he did that. So I'm really excited to hear from you some of the techniques.

00:06:53.040 I want to know first, before we get into that, how do you feel that this is applicable outside of maybe

00:06:59.000 a magic trick and obviously studying for courses and college and tests and things like that? How else

00:07:05.100 have you found improving your memory is applicable in life?

00:07:09.600 Oh, it's everywhere, every day, all the time. My particular interest and expertise, so to speak, is with

00:07:17.460 language learning, vocabulary memorization, memorizing phrases, memorizing things about the grammar points.

00:07:24.340 But it can be numbers. You know, I've had experiences where I asked a girl for a phone number stupidly. I 0.97

00:07:30.300 didn't even think of using these techniques. I pulled out my notebook. It was raining and all I saw when

00:07:35.060 she gave it back was a blob. And then I said, wait a second, say, say, say your number a little

00:07:39.980 bit slowly. Give me a second. And then it was her the next day when I called her. So, you know,

00:07:45.020 it's that kind of thing that can that you can use them for. And you can use them to feel better.

00:07:50.240 You know, you can actually sit down and meditate over what you've memorized and get a boost. There are

00:07:56.560 certain chemicals that are created and released in the brain, one of which is norepinephrine.

00:08:00.500 And it can give you a little bit of an emotional boost. So it's quite powerful in many, many

00:08:06.800 different respects. There's names. There's nothing more empowering than being able to remember a

00:08:11.220 person's name and make them feel extraordinarily special because you've memorized their name and

00:08:16.120 you don't have to say, what was your name again? Like you can eradicate that need from your life.

00:08:21.800 You just have to pay attention to their name and use a special technique, which is essentially

00:08:26.060 creating an image that helps you recall that name. And that person feels honored and treasured.

00:08:31.460 And even if it isn't on the surface that they're like, oh, I can't believe you remembered my name.

00:08:34.760 They'll still feel that. And that impact is huge.

00:08:38.620 Yeah, I'm sure when when I look at somebody, whether I'm deciding if this is a person of

00:08:43.720 credibility, somebody I can trust, somebody that I can follow, somebody that knows what they're

00:08:47.520 talking about, all of those levels of influence, I'm sure memorization and the ability to recall

00:08:52.340 facts and stories and names like you're talking about is extremely valuable when it comes to

00:08:57.340 building influence in the eyes of other people as well.

00:09:00.360 Yeah, absolutely. And just being able to make connections with your knowledge and be relatively

00:09:07.180 quick about it is a way of establishing expertise, being interesting. And then you can be interested

00:09:14.600 in other people at a much higher level because you're able to retain what they say to you.

00:09:19.120 And also, because you're memorizing stuff, you're paying much closer attention. You're paying

00:09:24.140 attention differently than you would if you're just sort of passively listening,

00:09:27.380 or even passively interested listening, if you know what I mean. You're actually absorbing it into

00:09:32.860 your mind. Tell me about the chemical that's released into your brain. I forgot what you called

00:09:37.700 it. But I'm really curious as to how and why and the mechanics behind how that actually works when

00:09:42.780 it comes to trying to recall facts and stories and things like that.

00:09:45.940 Yeah, well, there's several chemicals. But one of the major ones is norepinephrine. And it's key to

00:09:50.560 the formation of memory. And so one way to think about it is, is that it's released in novel

00:09:58.360 situations. So there's a there's like the airport effect where you can remember very clearly having

00:10:04.880 arrived in a new country or a new city. And that's because it's a novel situation. And this chemical is

00:10:12.140 really kicking in at that point. Also, when a new baby arrives, and so forth, you remember these certain

00:10:18.980 moments that are so vivid and clear. And that has to do with a high level of norepinephrine. So that's,

00:10:27.060 that's part of it. But there's, there's other other chemicals, serotonin and so forth that are that are

00:10:32.180 involved in this, and they're very key to the formation of memory. One way to think about how memories are

00:10:37.180 formed and how they're retained, is that the brain is kind of like a or the the memory parts of the

00:10:43.660 brain have a kind of neighborhood sensibility to them. So memories are not just like one memory is

00:10:50.980 not just one thing that goes into the brain, it's split up and divided into different houses in this

00:10:56.360 neighborhood. And as the memory ages, it will move in, it'll it'll move house, it will actually go from,

00:11:03.460 you know, your uncle's house to your sister's house, and then it might build its own house

00:11:07.040 somewhere. And so the equality of the chemicals that are involved, at the moment of acquiring that

00:11:15.220 information that becomes a memory, says a lot about where in the, where in the neighborhood of

00:11:21.120 memory, it winds up, it is wind up at, you know, street Y, or street X, or in another city, or how does

00:11:27.940 that all work has to do a lot with what your chemical state is at the time that you encounter

00:11:32.660 information. And that's why you can rig it and hack it to a certain extent. And you probably heard

00:11:37.600 things like where people eat a banana while they're studying and then eat a banana again, before they

00:11:43.080 actually take the exam. And that's kind of based on that idea that our chemical states are, can be

00:11:49.460 lined up to give a boost in recall. Interesting. So that was my next question. We're going to get into

00:11:54.820 some of the tactics and tricks maybe, but I want to know if there's anything outside of the,

00:12:00.760 the things that you learn, the ways to memorize and the strategies to memorize more information,

00:12:05.920 exercise, does that improve it? Does diet improve it? What are some of these outside factors that

00:12:09.840 can improve your memorization if there is any? Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, there's the, the,

00:12:15.900 the fitness that comes from being well exercised and well fed and well hydrated is critical. So you can

00:12:23.840 have all the memory techniques in the world, but you won't get nearly as much out of them. If you

00:12:29.480 don't have a well hydrated brain, for example, because your brain actually shrinks when you're

00:12:34.000 not well hydrated. So, you know, there's a lot of health benefits for coffee, but not necessarily

00:12:39.480 for memory. Although some people have claimed that it is good for memory. So we're not entirely clear

00:12:44.300 what it is, but one thing is for sure is that it shrinks the brain. And a lot of people drink coffee

00:12:48.980 first thing in the morning and they don't drink enough water. So they're shrinking and already

00:12:53.400 shrunken brain. And then they wonder why they don't have so much focus during the day.

00:12:56.680 And that's one reason. So if you have all things together, fitness and nutrition and hydration,

00:13:03.200 then you already have a memory advantage. And these techniques will just work that much better for

00:13:07.800 you. Interesting. Tell me about the difference between short-term memory and long-term memory,

00:13:13.740 because I think I have the ability to memorize facts very quickly, but then I'm also, it seems like

00:13:20.740 I purge those things from my mind very quickly as well. So how does the differences between short and

00:13:25.700 long-term memories work? Well, short-term memory is also called working memory. And it involves

00:13:31.660 being able to juggle a set number of information types or pieces, and they need to be translated

00:13:41.920 into mid-term memory or long-term memory. And it all has to do with what it is. It can involve

00:13:47.520 procedural memory, or it can involve episodic memory. And there are several other forms of memory

00:13:54.120 that are in play. So what working memory or short-term memory means is very context-driven.

00:14:00.040 So those facts that you might be able to hold on to for a certain period of time before they slip away,

00:14:06.840 the extent to which you can hold on to them may have to do with whether they belong to procedural

00:14:12.600 memory or episodic memory, for example. So translators who have to juggle multiple languages

00:14:20.360 at the same time and hold long phrases in their mind as they're translating to another language,

00:14:26.280 they have become exceptionally good at short-term memory in order to actually be able to do that.

00:14:33.000 But that's in that context. Whether or not they have that ability at a restaurant taking an order or

00:14:38.840 tracking the order that was given at a dinner party, I don't know. I don't know if they'd have a special

00:14:44.320 advantage because that's a different kind of memory.

00:14:46.800 So it sounds like a lot like a muscle that you can exercise and you can build and you can strengthen

00:14:52.460 and you might be strong in one area but not so strong in another area.

00:14:56.940 Yeah, exactly. And so when you're thinking about improving memory, one of the things that you want

00:15:01.180 to do is identify something about your memory type. So there are exercises that help you determine

00:15:07.040 more about your particular memory style. And it's not that there are huge extremes between one person

00:15:13.320 or another. But I'm sure we're all aware of people who are more visual and more auditory and more

00:15:18.700 kinesthetic and more conceptual and those kinds of things. So if you can really get some understanding

00:15:24.980 of how you operate in those representation centers, then you can leverage that to your advantage by

00:15:31.500 going to those kinds of tools first when you're using memory techniques.

00:15:35.120 So is there one that's one of those styles, whether it's visual or auditory, that has proven

00:15:41.680 to be more effective than another? Or is it completely dependent upon the person?

00:15:48.220 Well, the one thing that I think applies most across the board is the memory palace technique

00:15:55.500 because we all have fundamentally spatial memory abilities that are more or less the same.

00:16:02.140 A lot of people will not necessarily feel that they have that same capacity, but you couldn't

00:16:08.480 walk from your bathroom to your kitchen if you didn't have spatial memory. And we can all pretty

00:16:15.040 well picture the relationship between our bed and the TV in the living room. So that's one of the

00:16:21.460 basic foundations of all memory techniques is using what you already remember to rest what you don't

00:16:28.320 remember on top of. And so that's why memory palace has lasted so many years, like more than 2000 years

00:16:36.300 as a key core technique. And all the rest falls into place once that you've learned how to use that,

00:16:42.720 that approach at an optimal level.

00:16:46.160 It sounds like, and I don't know about memory palace, so I want to get into that, but it sounds like

00:16:50.820 it's an efficient way for your brain to function. The more that it does something and the more that it

00:16:55.660 can just do it naturally without having to recall that information so quickly, the more that it can

00:16:59.500 focus on other, maybe more important tasks. Is that right?

00:17:03.060 Yeah, absolutely. I believe that all memory is fundamentally spatial one way or the other.

00:17:09.260 So if I were to ask you to recall what your mother looks like, you could probably just,

00:17:14.280 if you think about it, you could point to a part of your brain where you feel that memory coming.

00:17:18.780 It would be, you know, your forehead or the back of your head. And then if you were to compare

00:17:22.680 that to what you remember, I don't know, Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan looks like, you may find

00:17:29.460 that you have the sensation of where that memory comes in a different part of your brain. So you can

00:17:34.860 experiment with that. And there's a spatial element to where our memories are. So it's really fascinating.

00:17:42.520 How does one find out or identify the type of learning and memorization that's going to be most

00:17:50.600 effective for them? Again, whether it's visual or auditory, how does somebody go about identifying

00:17:55.360 that information so they can use it to their advantage?

00:17:58.360 Well, experimentation is the key thing. So a lot of it has to do with being able to create images.

00:18:06.740 And if you really struggle with images, then you know that that might not be your strong point.

00:18:11.340 But before you give up with them, you can think about images in a different way. So you don't

00:18:15.860 necessarily have to see them in your mind. Or you can go to sound and see if it helps you to imagine

00:18:20.820 certain sounds going on in a particular action. Like maybe you don't see Godzilla's foot crushing

00:18:28.320 down on a car, but you can hear it and you can latch onto that auditory sensation, what it must look

00:18:36.300 like for that car to be crushed by his foot, even though you're not seeing it.

00:18:40.680 Yeah, right. So just experiment and see how you're recalling the information that you're trying to

00:18:47.060 recover.

00:18:47.960 Yeah. One of the things that breaks my heart is that so many people who offer memory training,

00:18:52.560 memory books, and so forth, they use the word system as if there's some kind of system that

00:18:57.040 someone can just pick up and download into their head and boom, the matrix, we now know memory

00:19:02.600 techniques. But it doesn't work that way. And I'm very deliberate about calling what I teach a method

00:19:07.980 because it's a method that allows you to create your own systems as opposed to some system that

00:19:13.100 is going to solve everything. It's all experimentation. There's nothing outside of

00:19:17.100 experimentation. Even if you just want to think about experimentation as experiential practice,

00:19:22.540 it's getting in there and doing it. And that's really how you learn it. And that's not to be

00:19:25.980 mystical or woo or like a guru or anything like that. But it's fishing. You are not fishing until you

00:19:31.580 have the reel in your hands and the hook in the water and you feel what it's like to have a fish

00:19:35.840 on your line. And then you go through the process of learning how to reel it in,

00:19:40.300 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

00:20:06.940 us taking action, putting information into practice so that we can develop and build muscles and all of

00:20:14.680 those things. So I completely agree and understand exactly what you're saying. You have to get out there

00:20:19.320 and do the work to make it work for you. Yeah. But in the case of memory techniques, unlike other

00:20:24.480 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

00:20:35.400 to put in the magic gun. And then you can, I mean, we know this, that there's all sorts of memory

00:20:40.420 champions. There's a record was just broken for memorizing a deck of cards under 20 seconds. And

00:20:45.560 if that isn't magic, I don't know what is. But it is one of those things where if you just get it,

00:20:51.720 then miracles can happen. I have a student who did a thousand words in six weeks of a very difficult

00:20:57.540 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

00:21:10.100 all the way. This is exciting because there's some poems and some speeches that I'm, I want to

00:21:15.120 memorize. So I'm sure I'll be able to use some of your, your strategies to be able to implement

00:21:19.700 some of that. And I look at these guys who do, you know, cowboy poetry, for example, or men that can

00:21:24.960 recall story word for word or poems word for word is incredible to me. So I'm excited to learn some

00:21:30.640 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 Men, I want to take a quick time out to introduce you to our sponsor and share a resource with you.

00:21:41.840 If you're anything like me, you're always on the lookout for great information to help you become

00:21:45.040 the man you want to be. I personally am always on the lookout for great podcasts, and I want you to

00:21:50.020 check out the art of charm. If you haven't already, Jordan covers topics like how to create

00:21:54.300 confidence, how to get people to like and trust you, how to keep things fresh in a relationship,

00:21:58.900 productivity, time management, biohacking, basically anything that will help you upgrade

00:22:02.920 your brain. So you can become a high performer, both at home and at work. If you're interested in

00:22:07.060 that, you can go to the art of charm.com slash podcast, or you can search for art of charm in

00:22:12.460 iTunes or stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcast. This is a show truly about leveling up your

00:22:17.220 life in life, relationships, friendship at work at home, everywhere in between. And it's filled with

00:22:21.860 practical advice. So listeners can apply something right out of the box. Every show, every day you

00:22:26.680 deserve an extraordinary life. Go to art of charm.com slash podcast, or you can find art of charm in

00:22:31.920 iTunes or stitcher, wherever you listen to podcasts and start taking your life to the next level.

00:22:36.020 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, 0.96

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 1.00

00:30:49.020 something to a Ram. Right. Interesting. Yeah. Now that makes sense. It's for the queen or 0.96

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 1.00

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 0.92

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.

00:40:09.060 Absolutely. And thank you very much.

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 life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

00:41:01.680 Thank you.

Order of Man - February 23, 2016

OoM 049： Building Your Memory Muscle with Anthony Metivier

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript