Ron White is a really amazing human being who’s mastered the ability to remember vast amounts of information within minutes and be able to recall it months and even years down the road. He’s also a two-time U.S. National Memory Champion.
If you’re thinking he’s just naturally gifted with a high IQ and you can’t learn anything from him about memory, specifically remembering names, I really encourage all of you to watch this video and several others he’s posted on YouTube. This is a regular guy who’s figured out how to “train” the brain to remember and recall quickly and efficiently. Ron can memorize the exact order of every card in a shuffled deck in 1 minute and 20 seconds!
Around the fourth minute of the vid, he starts rifling off the names of people in the audience! It’s really crazy, as he just met these people briefly in the hours leading up to the presentation.
Skip to 9:55 if you don’t want to be entertained and just want the tips.
He’s a really witty presenter, telling lots of jokes along with his tips for remembering people’s names.
The five steps required for memory according to Ron:
- Focus
- File
- Picture
- Glue
- Review
I think the tip most of us can benefit is this one:
- As you’re walking toward someone you don’t know yet, utter (in your head) “what is their name?” several times. This preps your brain and gets it focused on remembering.
This is probably more important than identifying the “picture” or standout features of the person. So many of us casually pass by other human beings in our daily life, making it hard to adjust when the time comes that we actually need to remember someone. The “what is their name” tip will be something I’ll be using from this day forward.
What was the most outstanding tip from Ron that you found helpful?
