Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0432: Remember things about people for conversation

Episode Date: November 3, 2015

Brian asks about remembering things about people from conversations. If someone tells you something interesting about themselves, how are you going to remember it for the next time you have a conversation with them? 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.

Master of Memory 432. 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. Brian wrote in an email, I'd like to hear your strategies for remembering specific things about specific people. If I were to tell you that I had a trip coming up to Seattle and that I hoped to go to a small coffee roaster there and get a sample of

some Brazilian beans that I could use as a Christmas gift for my cousin who lives in Texas that absolutely loves coffee, how would you remember all that? Is there a specific mnemonic for that? Or do you make a story or palace out of it? How do you tie those specific things to me? Could you remember all of those things, or would you just try to remember that I'm going to Seattle for some important coffee mission and then bring that up in conversation when you see me again? So Brian, this is a great question, and the question by itself demonstrates the value of memory for many situations. And I emphasize this quite a bit, just the fact that although some people argue that

memorization isn't so important anymore because we can always look things up, if you have to look things up in social situations, like people's names or details about their life that you should remember, it's basically an insult to them to have to look that up. So on the other hand, it's a great compliment to them, and they're very impressed and feel more kinship to you if you're able to recall things about them and are able to reconnect with them, as Brian's describing, where he talks to me about this thing, and then the next time I see him, it's like I'm picking up the relationship exactly where it left off. Now, I think that the important thing to think about here, just from a memory standpoint, is the trigger. So when I see you again, I should remember specifically the thing that we talked about last time, if you

want this to work out, and the trigger is probably going to be seeing you. Now, if I have, if we're talking from a very simple standpoint and just about remembering your name, that would just be based on a mnemonic, based on some facial aspect or something like that. But if you want to turn it into the last thing that we talked about, we would have to tie that to that trigger as well. Now personally, I would probably store something very simple and try to remember just something very small, not the entire story about Seattle, the coffee roaster, the Brazilian beans, the Christmas gift, and so on.

I would probably just remember that you were going to Seattle. And actually, honestly, if I was able to trigger that, that could probably help me to recall the entire story and actually talk about everything that you were describing to me in the previous conversation. But also, I think there's a difference between thinking in the short term and thinking in the long term. So I would say this is a short term thing. If you're talking about me meeting you the next time that we get together and remembering what you were going to do the next time or between then and the next time we saw each other, that's not something that I'm going to store long term. It's just a temporary thing. But in the broader picture of remembering specific things about specific people, you could use an actual memory palace where you store permanent things about them, or more or less permanent things, long-term things, like where they work, where they went to school, and things like that.

Things about them as a person. But yeah, to address the story that you were telling, I would just try to tie it somehow to their face. The mnemonic for their name I could tie to the beginning of their story, and I'll probably remember more of the story, especially if I go and actually review that before I meet him. Like if I know that I'm going to meet Brian again at a conference coming up, I'll go through my list of friends that are going to be at that conference, I'll see Brian, and I'll try to remember, hmm, what was it, what was the last thing that we talked about? And that'll help, and then when I see him, I'll recall all remember, hmm, what was the last thing that we talked about? And that'll help.

And then when I see him, I'll recall all of those things because I've reviewed it recently. Again, this is a very handy way to build your social value through mnemonic tactics and through simply enhancing your memory and being better at remembering things. For more ideas about how to improve your social skills through mnemonic tactics, go to masterofmemory.com slash conversation. We have an article there right now, but we're also hoping to create a bunch more useful materials for improving your social skills, your conversation skills, and things like that using mnemonic tactics and accelerated learning techniques. Thanks again for the great question, Brian. And for everyone listening, what do you want to learn

or remember? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question and I'll talk to you again soon.