Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0306: Reprise: When I’m speaking, how can I stop forgetting what to say under stress?

Episode Date: May 11, 2015

Today Timothy revisits the question on how to stop forgetting what to say when under stress, with some extra comments on how he would change his answer today. What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Today we're doing a reprise episode of episode 33 about remembering what you want to say under stress. In this episode, I describe the benefits of having a memory palace that has the major points of what you're wanting to say in a speech, so that even if you're stressed out and you spaced out, then you can still remember what your upcoming point is based on your mnemonics. The only thing I would add to this is the benefits of having a conversation toolbox of transitions or something like that, so that you can always pull out some sort of transition or some sort of filler thing to say, so that if you do space out, you can pull something out of your toolbox to say in the meantime to help you get back on track. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever.

Sandy asked a question on Facebook about speaking. Sandy teaches people to memorize content for presentations, but she says that people have a particularly tough time remembering while under the stress of being on stage. Well, Sandy, there's a huge advantage to using mnemonics and memory palaces for, you know, memorizing content that you're going to have to use in a stressful situation. Because even if you memorize the whole thing really well, you can space out while you're on the stage. And a mnemonic or a memory palace is a great thing to fall back on. Back in episode 11, I talked about how to memorize scripts using a memory palace by placing a different point of your script in a different room. So if your speakers use a 10-item journey, like the journey from, you know, I like to use again and again, the journey from my bed to my

kitchen, just because it's a simple five-step journey, you know, it's something I'm really familiar with. I just place a different topic in each room, and I can remember all of those topics in order. So I remember the first topic of my speech in the first room, the second topic of my speech in the second room, and that's actually where the term in the first place came from. It's kind of an interesting history. People have, for a long time, for more than two millennia, people have been memorizing their speeches using the Loki method or the memory palace method. So they say in the first place and they continue because in the first place, they've mentally placed the first topic of their speech. So you can go back to episode 11 and hear what that's about. But just to give a rundown here, again, you're placing a different topic in each room. And what you're going to do is turn a topic into something memorable that you

can place in the room. So if you're talking about, you know, let's say you're talking about, you're giving a presentation about university statistics and what kind of students are admitted to schools, and your first topic is just your introduction. And you want to remember to grab your audience really memorably so that they'll listen to the rest of the presentation, perhaps with some really alarming statistic. And if your first location in your memory palace is your bedroom, then you might imagine that an alarm is going off, maybe an alarm that, you know, you don't even have in your bedroom. It'll just be easy for you to remember, and you could even help to remember what that statistic that you're grabbing people with is. Let's say, you know, the statistic was that many Ivy Leagues are accepting less than 8% of applicants. So you could imagine that it's

before eight in the morning and your alarm clock is, you know, two elephant tusks clacking together and that's your alarm in the morning. So it'd be easy to remember that, you know, it's about the Ivy League from the ivory tusks and it's a little under eight in the morning. Then I recommend practicing the speech under pressure and figuring out what types of things you or your students have trouble remembering. Let's say that you have particular trouble remembering things in your fourth point or the fourth thing that you're talking about, which would be the fourth location in your memory palace. You know what you're generally talking about, but under the stress of the situation, you forget certain things or you leave out certain points. All you would have to do there

is start adding things to that room, that fourth location. So instead of just remembering in the fourth place, you're talking about the demographics of East Coast schools, you actually remember specific things. So you place certain memorable things in those rooms using mnemonics. Anytime something is hard to remember, create a specific mnemonic for that and make sure to test yourself frequently, you know, just to make sure that you know that the things that you have the least strong memory of are the things you're most likely to forget under stress, you actually have sequential mnemonics so you always know where you are in the memory palace and what it is you're supposed to be talking about. Again, this technique is designed to give you something to fall back on so that even if you have the whole speech memorized,

if you space out, you can remember where you are in the memory palace and get back on track. All right, I hope you've enjoyed this reprise episode. For anyone who has any questions about learning or memorizing anything faster than ever, feel free still to leave a message at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll be able to respond quickly to your message from wherever I am. I just won't be able to record an episode on that topic until I'm back in the States in May. Meanwhile, if you want to support the show, please check out our Spanish course at masterofmemory.com slash Spanish. Or if you want to follow my adventures in Argentina or wherever else I might happen to be, you can do that at timothymoser.com. © transcript Emily Beynon