Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0480: Memorize the NCO creed for the army

Episode Date: January 8, 2016

Brandon wants to memorize the NCO creed for the army. In the episode I present a full plan for memorizing the creed, along with sample mnemonics for making the memorization quick and easy. 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 480. 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. Brandon asked a question in an email about memorizing the non-commissioned officer's creed for the U.S. Army, known as the NCO Creed. The technique that we usually follow to memorize passages is to use, first of all, a recording of the passage that you can just generally use to listen and recite along as you learn it mnemonically, so those two things build on each other. Second of all, in this case, to create acronyms for the beginnings of the sentences in this short creed, because we can do that. It

won't be too hard. It's just a few sentences. And then also create imagery for the key words of these sentences. So following the principle of exclusivity, I've chosen to take just one key word from each sentence in this creed and suggests that you create your imagery in your memory palace based on that one word. So the way that the first paragraph goes is, well, first of all, most of the sentences in this entire creed start with the letter I, or the word I. So for example, it begins, no one is more professional than I. I am a non-commissioned officer, a leader of. I am a non-commissioned officer, a leader of soldiers. As a non-commissioned officer, I realize that I'm a member of a time-honored corps, which

is known as the backbone of the army. I am proud of the corps of non-commissioned officers and will at all times conduct myself so as to bring credit upon the corps, etc. So you can see that these sentences, about half of them, start with the letter I. The acronym to begin these sentences is in the first paragraph, N-I-A-I-I. So think N-I-I-I. And then in part two, the second paragraph, we have C-M-I-I-I-A-I-I-I. So you can see there's a little bit of symmetry there. C-M-I-I-I, A-I-I-I. You want to store that somewhere in a palace.

And then you have part three, O followed by five I's. Now, what does this mean? It means that you need three rooms in a memory palace. You need to associate these acronyms with those places in the palace in whatever way works for you. And then we'll start filling that palace with the key words from near the beginnings of these sentences. So I mentioned earlier, the first sentence is, no one is more professional than I. So we need a visual for the word professional. For you, that might be two people shaking hands or something like that. No one is

more professional than I. So your first location in the first room in your memory palace is for the word professional. And that's the main word that you're going to lean on in the sentence. But you can also remember that the sentence starts with N. So you have kind of those two things to rely on. In the second sentence, you know that it starts with I because of the acronym, but you also have an image of non-commissioned. So whatever that means for you, you need to create an image for non-commissioned to remember between that and the beginning letter or word, I. I am a non-commissioned officer, a leader of soldiers. The third sentence starts with A for as, and the key word that I've chosen is realize.

Now that sounds pretty abstract, but there are ways to create images for abstract terms. When you think of realizing, what comes to mind? Is it a light bulb or something like that? What visual thing can you use? It needs to be a physical visual object in order to be stored well in your memory palace. So as a non-commissioned officer, I realize that I'm a member of a time honored corps, which is known as the backbone of the army. You might also throw in an image for backbone if you find that you have trouble with that phrase. But generally, I tend nowadays to

lean on the beginning of a sentence and one key word from the sentence, and the rest of it tends to be remembered pretty well without imagery. The next sentence is, I am proud of the Corps of non-commissioned officers and will at all times conduct myself so as to bring credit upon the Corps, the military service, and my country, regardless of the situation in which I find myself. You could create a few keyword images for that sentence, or you can just try, I am proud, and then depend on your kinesthetic memory of having recited this a few times to remember the rest of the sentence. Again, you kind of have to gauge that yourself. So again, not to get stuck in the weeds, what we're doing is we've created an acronym for each of the parts, N-I-A-I-I, C-M-I-I-I, A-I-I-I, and O-I-I-I-I. Then we fill in our palace with visuals to represent the main key words that you need to help prompt yourself to remember each sentence so that you never get lost because you're going through your palace. And those key words, I'm just going to

finish the episode by going through all those key words. In the first paragraph, they're professional, non-commissioned, realize, proud, and grade. In the second paragraph, and you want to make note of this, the words are watchword, to, strive, aware, fulfill, leadership, know, as in K-N-O-W, communicate, and fare. And then in part three, we have maximum, earn, loyal, initiative, compromise, and forget. So if you can memorize just those key words and then recite this with the acronyms in mind and with, you know, having listened to it several times and said it along with it, then just using the few things that you've memorized, you can remember not only just how to recite this thing smoothly all the way through, but how to find yourself if you find yourself getting a little bit lost. You can just find

where you are in the memory palace and pick up from there. Thanks for the question, Brandon. And for everyone listening who isn't sure what I'm referring to when I talk about keywords and memory palaces, I would suggest that you go to masterofmemory.com start for a complete starter guide on how to memorize passages and how to create elaborate memory palaces to learn anything faster than ever. Meanwhile, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question and I'll talk to you again soon.