Optional Bonus Video- Nelson Dellis Memory Tips

What up everyone? Welcome to another Memory Tips video.

My name’s Nelson Dells, four time USA member Memory champion.

And in this video I’m going to be teaching you how to remember numbers. So the thing with numbers is that they’re hard. A lot of people have difficulty remembering numbers for some reason.

It’s because numbers are so abstract, right. They’re these symbols that represent a number but beyond that they’re kind of just a symbol. Individually these symbols, these numbers are meaningless.

So the goal with numbers, first and foremost, is to give numbers meaning. Well how do we do that Nelson? I’m going to show you viewer.

First thing we need to memorize numbers is a system. We need some way of converting those difficult, abstract symbols, digits, numbers, into something that we can process and then turn into something that we can imagine or visualize.

And easiest thing to visualize are words, so we need a system that’ll turn numbers into words. And to be able to construct words, we need letters. So I have the perfect system for you.

You’ll be memorizing numbers in no time I’m going to need some tools let’s go. This is something called the major system.

What’ll do is turn each digit 0 through 9 into a consonant sound. 0 is an s or a z sound. 1 is a t or a d sound 2 is an n, 3, m, 4 is an r 5 is an l 6, j, ch, soft g sound. 7 is a k, ch or a hard g sound. 8 is the f or v 9 is p or b. So you need to memorize this first.

Let’s start with 0 z right? t or d 1 down stroke. You draw a t or d go down. Same with the f you have 2 downstroke m 3 downstroke could slip 3 over 4 ends in r, 5 that’s an L right?

5 fingers gives you an L. If i draw J like that Kind of looks like a backwards 6. 7, if I draw a capital K, look at that, that’s two 7s, back to back. If I draw a cursive f, it looks like an 8. Finally a 9, flip it, I get p, if I flip that, I get a b, okay.

So let’s try a number, let’s choose say 54. 5 is that L, right? R is the 4. So we have L R, now that opens a bunch of possibilities where we can place the vowels before or in between or after wherever you can come up with a bunch of words Lure ,Lawyer.

L(aye)R, L(ai)R, L(au)R(a) And remember, these all go by sound. So even though a word like L(awye)R has awye in between the L and the R, you think, okay, those aren’t really vowels although it is a vowel sound.

The sound is all that matters, right. So L(awye)R The main consonant sounds that you hear are the L and the R. So, when you hear lawyer, or when you see lawyer, you’re going to decipher those two consonant sounds into letters representing 5, 4.

Now, that number is going nowhere in your memory unless you would touch to something. So, depending on what you’re trying to memorize, if it’s a sequence of numbers, we’d have to use maybe your body method or you use a memory palace, like I’ve talked about in other videos.

Or if you’re using something, like you’re trying to remember a year, or a PIN code, or a birthday, very short numbers that have to be attached to someone, or some fact, or some thing.

That’s a different process as well and that’s probably easier. Let’s start with a few examples of how to remember small numbers to singular facts.

Let’s go.

So the first thing I want you to picture is a burger, a hamburger. This hamburger Has arms and he’s knocking, like you knock on a front door, on a tick.

Like a tiny, little tick, right? So this hamburger is knocking on a tick. So when I say burger, you think knock, tick.

If I say knock, tick you can tell me it was a burger. So it works one way or another the image complete together. But one links to the other back and forward and that one was really easy.

Well I want you to picture is someone really high up hanging now they are hanging by their nose. Their nose is what holding them up, their hanging from their nose and it’s a game, that’s important thing. Hanging by your nose, it’s a game.

All right the next one, I want you to picture, it’s very simple image, trading, so you’re trading with someone a dog cage. So you have this big wiry dog cage. Maybe there’s a dog inside.

Maybe it’s filthy. And what you’re doing is you’re trading that dog cage back and forth with someone you give it to them. They give it back to you. All right, the next one, I want you to imagine petting, rubbing your hand against a door that has fumes coming out of it.

So maybe you’re petting this door and, on the other side, maybe there’s a fire maybe there’s some gas that’s leaking. And there’s fumes just emanating out of the sides of the cracks of the door.

Pet, door, fume. All right, the next one. I want you to picture a will. So you have this will with all your last wishes. And you’re on top of a tower and you lose it. You just drop it. Will, tower, lose.

So quick review. We have the burger with the knocking on the tick. Hanging by your nose, it’s a game. Trading a dog cage.

Petting a door with fumes coming out. And then finally we had a will that you’re on a tower, you lose it. Now, so check this out, the five things that you memorize were some of the tallest buildings in the world and their heights.

Now here’s how it goes, the first word was a word to help you remember the name of the building. Those are the two words, represented a four-digit number, which represents the height in feet.

So, the first one was a burger. So, burj khalifa. And the height of it, knock tick. If we break that down into its consonant sounds, knock which is N and a K sound that’s 2 and a 7. Tick which is a 1 and another 7 is 2717. The Burj Khalifa is 2717 feet high.

Wow.

Tallest building in the word actually. Next one on the list was Hang, hang shang the Shanghai Tower which is in China, Shanghai and you were hanging by your nose and it was a game.

For the n and s from the nose that’s 2 and a 0 and then game was a 7 was a car or a hard g so that a 7 and end for game is a 3 so 2,073 feet high is Shanghai town. Next trading any guess? One world trade center in New York city.

This ones actually pretty easy to memorize without a system. The height of it is 1776, a very memorable year in American history.

But if you want to use the system, be consistent what we have was we were trading the dog cage. So dog cage, D is a 1, hard G again is a 7. Cage the cat is a 7 and the soft G is a 6, so 1776 feet high.

Next we have pet, you’re petting something, it’s the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, one of the tallest buildings in the world. What were we petting? A door with fume coming of it, right?

So D is 1, R is a 4, that’s 14. And then fume is an 8 and a 3 so 1-4-8-3. 1, 483 feet for the Petronas Towers. And finally, Willis Tower formerly known as the Sears Tower the height of that one remember we were at the tower and we lose So Tower is T and R that’s 1 and 4 and then lose 5 and 0.

So we have 1450 is the Willis Tower. If you do anything you want with dates maybe something happened on a certain date and you memorised the footage year, you can memorize your pin code attached to picture of your bank or whatever institution that your pin number is attached to, you can do for birthday and attach it to the person, the sky is the limit my friend.

Thanks for watching this video, next time we’re going to dive into how to memorize a really, really, really long list. How do you manage your memory palace for a long list?

But for now, I’m out. Stay memorable, thanks for watching. Peace.