Optional Bonus Video- Nelson Dellis Memory Tips

What’s up everyone? Welcome to another episode of Random Memory Tips. And in this episode, we’re going to talk about how to remember names and faces. So, how many of you out there think you have an especially poor memory for names and faces?

Probably a lot of you, that’s probably the number one request I get is, Nelson how do I remember the names and faces of people I meet. Everybody seems to struggle with names and faces, but why? Why is it that names are so, here’s the thing problem with remembering people’s names and faces. One is that we’re always on the move, right? When we meet people, it’s either really quick, it’s maybe really loud. The social situation actually dictates how easy or difficult it is to remember someone’s name. And because there’s people involved, we’re often too embarrassed to ask for the name multiple times, or to follow up and really learn the person’s name if we missed it or just forgot it really quick. But here’s a cool thing, when I started memory techniques I had a bad memory. And especially a bad memory in names and faces, that was one of my worst skills. It turns out that after a number of years of practice I managed to become the top memorizer of names in the entire country. And when I do speeches I frequently will remember the whole room and go around picking people off, telling them what their name was. And I only have to meet them for a matter of seconds beforehand. I tell you that, so that you can realize that someone who didn’t have a good memory, especially with names, can turn into someone who is really good at remembering names. Anyways I have five steps that I always follow, when memorizing names, I’m going to share them with you. All right, step 1, pay attention. I already alluded to this beforehand, but you always have to pay attention. Remembering anything, especially names, will not happen unless your mind is ready to remember this person’s name. An easy little tip here to get your mind primed to remember someone’s face, is walk into the situation. Whether it’s a meeting or you’re walking into a party, or someone’s about to introduce you. In your mind tell yourself the following phrase. I want to remember this person’s name. That’s it, if you just did that step alone and didn’t even bother with the next four that I’m going to share, you would have a better memory for names, pay attention. All right, step 2 is to choose a feature. Most people might say, choose a feature on the person’s face. Try to choose something that doesn’t change, like don’t use glasses, don’t use earrings. I think choose whatever you notice first. If it is a pair of glasses, if it’s a mole, if it’s their bushy eyebrows, if it’s their crazy red curly hair. Even if it’s a funny shirt with a seagull on it with a hat, just choose it. It can even be more vague than that, it could be like the way that they walk, manner in which they move their hands. What’s important to this is to choose something that you just naturally notice, and that popped out at you first. Why? Because that’s probably what’s going to pop out at you the next time you see them. All right, step 3, take their name and turn it into a picture. You’ve mentality primed yourself, you’ve chosen a feature and now you’re going in for the handshake. Now you take that word, and you have to turn that into a picture. So, the first thing you want to do is say to yourself when you hear that name, what does it remind me of? If I heard Bob, for me I would think of a sea bob, so this round bob thing in the water bouncing up and down. Step 4, now this is the crucial step. This is what will cement that name into your memory, and that is where you intertwine steps two and three. Where you take the feature, you take the image, and you just match them together. Imagine the picture interacting, or living, or being on that feature. So, the final step now is step number 5. And this is where you can consolidate all of that information and try to push it into your long-term memory. Step 5 is to review, and by review, I mean make an extra effort to think about or test yourself on this person’s name. The key to having something engrained into your long-term memory is review, unfortunately. That is always going to be the case. The techniques one through four will get you very, very far, but if you want to have an incredible memory where you meet someone a year later. And you remember their names, and you just wow them, that’s where a better review comes in. To review, we have those five steps. The first one was, to pay attention. The second one was, choose a feature. The third one was, ask for the name and come up with a picture for that name. Four is to mash the name and the feature together, and then five is review. I want to do some examples, I’m going to have you memorize the names and faces of five different English bulldogs. Why English bulldogs? Well, because they have such friendly faces. And one thing I want to prove to you, is that ideally, with these five steps, you could do this for plants, you could do this for dogs, you could do this for any other animal. You could do this for a bar of soap. But of course you’re going to want to use it for real live people. But, if you can do it for the other kinds of things that are a bit crazy, then you for sure will have an awesome memory when it comes time to memorize a person’s name. Ready?

All right, so our first bulldog is going to be this guy. Though I might choose, for example, on this guy’s left ear. So, I’m going to choose that location, his brown ear there. This guy’s name is Brian, and so we need to turn the name Brian into a image. Brian I think of a brain, Brian, brain close enough. So what I’ll do is I will plop a peak, fresh out of the skull brain on this bulldog’s left ear that’s brown. That’s it. All right, so the second dog is this guy. Okay, kind of older, much more droopier. And in this case, the feature I’m going to choose for this dog is the fact that his jowls are really, really droopy. And, his name is Edward. When I think of Edward I think of an award. Edward, award, Edward, award, it’s close right? So, maybe this dog get’s the award for being the droopiest face dog in the history of dog kind. Here’s our next dog. All right, and the first thing I notice about this dog is that little snaggle tooth that kind of pops out on the left there. So, this dogs name is, it’s a girl, her name is Janice. All I see in this word or hear in this word is nice. Okay, so I’m going to picture that even though she has a snaggle tooth, it’s kind of menacing showing that tooth, she’s the nicest dog that I’ve ever met. So with the snaggle tooth, you’d think she bite, maybe, with that sharp tooth. But in fact, she’s actually really nice. Our next dog, super cute dog, and the first thing I notice is this dog’s tongue just hanging out, and this dog’s name is Leah. When I think of the name Leah, I think of Princess Leia. So when I think of Princess Leia, I think of those two buns of hair that she has on her ears. So I’m going to put those two buns on this dog. And she’s licking these buns that are on the side of her head like Princess Leia. Our last dog here he is, I’m going to chose over his nose. He kind of has a more pronounced, unusual fold of skin right there. So, I’m going to choose that as his feature. His name is Phillip. Phillip sounds like I’m going to fill something up. And we can imagine filling up that little strip of folded skin, and maybe being filled up with water, or some, filled up with water, right there, that’s it. All right, so now let’s do a quick test. I’m going to show you these five dogs out of order, and I’ll give you a second to say that name out loud and then I’ll reveal the answer. Here we go. So that’s it guys, that’s how to remember names. Just stick to those five tips, when you’re in social situation, and I promise you, you will improve. The important thing with names and faces is to try. So often we don’t try anymore because we have these devices that can do it for us. Or we simply are too busy with ourselves or other things that we don’t even take the time to try and learn a person’s name. So take that time, make the effort, use that little thing that’s inside your head and try to memorize people you meet. That’s it for now, I’ll see you in the next video. Thanks for watching, I’m out.