Why You Need To Read This Book

People around the world dream of mathematical excellence.

Yet, so few will ever develop the math skills they'll need to
succeed.
As a result, they may never pursue the amazing hoped for
job opportunities. They may never write computer programs
or take part in the creation of the kinds of formulas that
send spaceships to the moon. They may never learn to
balance their savings and expenses, which may mean a life
of uncertainty, stress and debt. They may never have
impressive business contacts or travel the world, all due to
failure in this area.
Even with the best intentions and instructors, students
struggle to become "fluent" in mathematics.
Why is math such a struggle? Many math students blame a
lack of time. Some claim that memorizing the math rules
and formulas they need to know is too hard. Some claim
they weren't born with a "math brain," are mathematically
"challenged," or blame heredity – "No one in my family has
ever understood math." Others try to learn math concepts
by rote. They copy formulas hundreds of times into their
notebooks by hand, praying that the information will stick.
The biggest excuse heard around the world, and in every
language, is the saddest excuse of all. Most people who
struggle with math claim they have a bad memory.
I sympathize with this. I used to love claiming, "I have a
poor memory!" In fact, I have silently sworn so vehemently
about my "bad memory" that, had I spoken my frustration
out loud, my teachers would have kicked me out of class.
I remained irritated with what I perceived to be my poor
memory until I decided to do something about it. I studied
memorization and ultimately devised the unique Memory
Palace method described in this book: The Magnetic
Memory Method.
What is the Magnetic Memory Method? It is an easily
learned set of skills that you can completely understand in
under an hour. It is a method that will have you memorizing
numbers and math rules at an accelerated pace. Within just
a short few hours, after you've learned the technique, you'll
amaze yourself by what you can do.
Instead of struggling to learn and retain one or two formulas
a day, you will find yourself memorizing much, much more.
Every time you learn math in conjunction with the memory
techniques taught to you in this book, you will gain more
knowledge of math. Your imagination will also get stronger,
which leads to a whole host of other benefits.
It pleases me immensely to help people memorize numbers
and mathematical equations. I'm always delighted when
people write to me with stories of success. I receive thank
you notes almost every day as readers of my books describe
to me how easily they memorized sometimes very difficult
information.
These achievements are thrilling to me, thrilling for the
people who use the techniques and they will thrill you also.
This edition of How To Memorize Numbers, Equations &
Simple Arithmetic is for you. Whether you are an adult,
teenager or someone working with young students, you will
benefit from this book.
Anyone who struggles with learning, retaining and using
numbers and formulas stands to gain a great deal. I have
designed this book so that as soon as you understand the
core memory method, you can sit with a math textbook and
memorize. Anywhere and at any time you can recall any
rule that you wish easily and accurately. Permanently.
I have written this book for those math students who have
the burning desire to learn a formula once and recall it
within minutes, if not seconds, of having learned it, and to
do so without frustration of any kind.
Three obstacles stand between you and memorizing
numbers, formulas and arithmetic. The belief that:
1. You don't need a dedicated memorization strategy for
memorizing numbers and formulas.
 2. Memorization strategies won't work for you.
3. Memorization strategies are too much work.
Let's examine each of these beliefs.
The Belief That You Don't Need A Dedicated
Memorization Strategy For Memorizing Numbers and
Formulas
Although repetition is always important when it comes to
learning, it is a shame that so many people wind up relying
on rote learning. I call learning by rote the "blunt force
hammer" of education. Why? Because it is exactly like
pounding your eyes and brain with a hammer. This is
especially painful to see when there are ways to use your
natural imagination, ways which expand your ability to learn
and memorize as you memorize and learn.
Worse, people who use rote learning are usually deluding
themselves. We have all experienced the fantasy that
repeatedly looking at index cards will put the information
into long-term memory. However, only rarely does this
painful activity reward you with permanent ownership of
those numbers and formulas.
The fact is that repetition without making a memorable
connection with the material doesn't work – not in my
experience, and not in the experience of the thousands of
people who have read my Magnetic Memory Method books
and taken my video courses.
Looking back at my own student experiences, I'm shocked
that my schools did not teach dedicated memorization skills.
Instead of sitting through long classes based upon the
repetition of one or two math exercises, I could have been
using an alternative. With a dedicated memorization
strategy, I could have been memorizing dozens of important
math concepts per day.
The Belief That Memorization Strategies Won't Work
For You
People often tell me that the memory techniques I teach will
not work for them. I always confidently respond with a
simple truth:
Not only will these techniques work if you follow the
exercises, these techniques will literally blow you away.
Especially when you see how quickly your math skills
develop.
Try out the memory techniques taught in this book for
yourself and you will marvel at the progress you'll make.
Guaranteed.
The Belief That Memorization Strategies Are Too
Much Work
You will need between 1-2 hours to set up the full Memory
Palace system taught in this book and another 2-3 hours to
really get the hang of the method. After that, it's just a
matter of picking up speed. The steps are easy and fun. The
bonus is you can memorize numbers and formulas as you
are learning the Magnetic Memory Method.
As soon as you've understood the principles of math
memorization and have started working with the method
taught in this book, you will be memorizing new math rules
by the dozens – all with consistent speed and accuracy. The
best part is that this method will serve you for life and can
be extended to memorizing just about any information you
could ever want.
I have a suggestion for you before you turn the page and
start your journey toward advanced memorization skills.
Believe in the power of your mind.
When I started using memory techniques, for example, I
constantly told myself that the language, or subject matter I
was learning at the time, was too difficult and that my brain
was ill equipped. I acted as if I had been born with a poor
memory. This not only pushed the information to be learned
away from me, it also eroded my confidence and made
things much more difficult than they needed to be.
Don't be like this.
The ability to memorize numbers and math rules and put
them to use with near-100% accuracy opened the world's
doors for me, and it will do the same for you.
Moreover, when we consider the importance of math in
society, it is that much more important that we do not
belittle ourselves. Your mind is powerful. By developing a
positive mental attitude and learning the Magnetic Memory
Method your efforts will be easy, fun and demonstrate to
you the powerful abilities of your own mind every single day
for the rest of your life.
Math remains a "language" spoken all around the world.
This means that those with solid math skills can experience
so much more in their careers.
With advanced math skills, you'll qualify for better jobs.
You'll have more opportunities in the fields of science,
computing and engineering. If you are a businessperson,
you will engage in meetings and meet potential clients and
partners with the ease and efficiency of number mastery
that marks all great entrepreneurs. And, there are many
more benefits too.
You will love adapting the Magnetic Memory Method for
memorizing numbers and formulas to your individual
learning style, and you'll enjoy massive success as a result.
Give me 5 hours of your time (or less) as you teach yourself
how to use this method. In return, I will give you the
techniques and abilities you'll need to memorize all the
math formulas you have ever dreamed possible and
experience massive boosts in number and math "fluency" as
a result.
 How To Learn & Memorize
Math, Numbers,
Equations, & Simple
Arithmetic
 
By Anthony Metivier, PhD
www.magneticmemorymethod.com
 
 Wait!
I have created FREE Magnetic Memory Method
worksheets just for you. These will help you take the
memory improvement lessons you'll learn in this
book to the next level. You’ll also be given the
opportunity to watch the free video course Memory
Palace Mastery.
In order to download these worksheets and start
watching the videos, go now while these materials
are still FREE: Magnetic Memory Method Worksheets
 
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: The Basics Of Number Memorization
Chapter Two: How To Build & Use A Memory Palace
Chapter Three: Bringing Memory Palaces & The Basic
Principles Together So You Can Memorize Any
Number, Equation Or Formula You'll Ever Encounter In
Your Life Again
Chapter Four: How To Get Even The Most Difficult
Numbers, Equations & Formulas Into Long-term
Memory Using The Simplest And Most Enjoyable
Memory Technique In The World
Chapter Five: How To Overcome Procrastination So
That You're Actually Using The Techniques In This
Book And Making Massive Leaps In Your
Understanding Of Math And Acing All Of Your Exams
Chapter Six: How To Defeat Procrastination Forever
Chapter Seven: Two Relaxation Secrets For Studying
Math That Condition You To Excel In Tests And Exams
With No Stress, Worry Or Suffering
Conclusion
About The Author
Bonus: How To Memorize 9 Complex Formulas in 45
Minutes: An Interview With One Of The World's
Leading Math Experts (Includes link to full video)
Introduction
First off, I want to congratulate you on laying a new
foundation for your math learning experience. This book is
truly groundbreaking. For the first time there is a collected
package of tools, strategies and insights needed to succeed
with memorizing mathematical principles and formulas.
Therefore, the opportunity you have before you now is
indeed an exciting one. You now have in your possession the
same information and material that has enabled thousands
of ordinary men and women with no special memory
abilities to raise their passion for math to the next level and
experience massive boosts in their (and now your)
understanding of and ability to understand and use math.
Why is this book so powerful?
Because nothing about building and using Memory Palaces
for math has been held back, you're getting everything
there is to know about using Memory Palaces.
This introduction to the Magnetic Memory Method includes
the most complete and detailed training on building a
network of Memory Palaces for memorizing math ever
presented. The best part is that you can use the technique
to memorize any other kind of information you'll ever
encounter.
In addition to this amazing training, you'll find:
* A complete description on how to build and use Memory
Palaces for memorizing and recalling mathematical
formulas, principles and rules.
* Access to the author to answer all your questions (my
email address is [email protected]).
* Secret strategies for using relaxation to aid the
memorization process.
* Tips about overcoming procrastination while studying
math.
* An exclusive, Preferred Reader invitation to receive
ongoing content to back up the memory training offered in
this book.
* Access to amazing bonuses linked to throughout this book
that will inspire you and deepen your familiarity with using
Memory Palaces.
As you can see, this is a VERY full book.
Now, you might be wondering, what do I do first?
Here's a STRONG recommendation. Take a moment to
answer the three quick questions on the next page. You can
easily email me your answers with "Memory Questions
Answered" in the subject line for a free gift that will continue
your education in the art of learning and memorizing.
That's it for now. You have lots to do and a very exciting
adventure ahead of you! Make sure you subscribe to the
Magnetic Memory Method newsletter and watch your email
inbox for ongoing announcements, and make sure to get in
touch with any questions you may have by email at
[email protected].
Dedicated to improving your math knowledge and your
memory,
Anthony Metivier
Founder of the Magnetic Memory Method
www.magneticmemorymethod.com
[email protected]
Send In Your Answers To These Three Questions For A
Special Gift! Email me your answers with "Memory
Questions Answered" in the subject line at
[email protected].
 
Magnetic Memory Question #1:
 
What is your personal "Memory Myth" about your memory,
including any programming you may have received as a
young person or continue to receive in your daily life? How
does this myth affect how you think about your memory?
 
Magnetic Memory Question #2
 
What is the "distance" between where you are now with
your memory skills and where would you like to be in the
future? Please be as specific as possible, including
something like a deadline for when you would like to see a
difference achieved (five minutes from now, tomorrow, next
month, next year, etc.).
 
Magnetic Memory Question #3
 
What is your education "action plan" for completing this
course so that you have total control over the improvement
you would like to see in this area of your life?
Remember: email your answers to me with "Memory
Questions Answered" in the subject line at
[email protected] for a special gift ($24 value).
 Chapter One: The Basics Of Number Memorization
The ability to remember numbers has many benefits. You
can, for instance, memorize and recall such important
sequences as:
* Social Security numbers for everyone in your family
* Your driver's license number
* Credit card numbers
* Birthdays and ages
* Coordinates
* Street addresses
* Phone numbers (Yes, the ability to memorize these still
comes in handy. You never know when you're going to make
a hot date at the swimming pool with no cell phone in sight!)
The good news is that there are specific mnemonic
techniques for memorizing numbers. They're easy to learn
and easy to use.
The typical go-to method is the Major Method. It's not called
"Major" because everyone uses it, but because its fame is
often attributed to Major Beniowski. We now know that an
earlier version of the system already existed, invented by
the French scholar Aime Paris. Paris, renowned for his
number memorization techniques in the early 1800s, earned
the honorable title of "professeur de mnemonique" from the
Athenee University in Paris.
Other terms for Paris' method are the "phonetic mnemonic
system" and the "digit-consonant" system. No matter what
you call it, the basics of the Major Method consist of linking
numbers with sounds. There are complex renditions of the
Major Method, but the simplest goes like this:
0=s
1 = d, t
2=n
3=m
4=r
5=l
6 = ch, j or sh
7=k
8 = f or v
9=p
Putting the sounds together involves inserting a vowel. To
memorize a simple number like "22," you could insert "u" to
make the word "nun," or if you're familiar with Indian bread,
you could use "nan."

To take a longer example, "animal" could help you recall the

number "235" because n = 2, m=3 and l=5.
But is this enough?
Not really.
What we need is to take these images and make them large,
bright, vibrant, strange, bursting with color and energized
with action.
For example, imagine needing to memorize "22235."
We already have "nun" (22) and we already have "animal"
(235), so let's add zany action by having the nun attack the
lion.
If the number were 23522, you could just reverse the image.
Now the lion is attacking the nun.
By making sure that the words we create from the phonetic
sounds are linked to the numbers, we make everything much
more memorable.
You can think of this action-based "associative-imagery" as a
kind of mini-story or vignette. In the scientific literature,
images like nuns attacking lions are sometimes called "story
mnemonics."
Permanent or Flexible?
Some people like to choose permanent images for numbers.
For example, 22 would always be a nun and 235 would
always be an animal.
My preference is to keep a small pool of figures to fall back
on but maintain flexibility when needed. It's also important
that the words we create from the Major Method phonetics
are concrete.
What does this mean?
Compare "nun" to "none." Which one can you see in your
mind?
Having completed this exercise, it should be obvious that
memorizing "none," i.e. nothing attacking a lion, will not
produce a strong memory that is easy to recall.
What about creating images for single digits?
Memorizing single digits is as easy as creating images for 1-9
in a way that requires no "phonetics" as such. For example,
people often associate:
1 with a candlestick ...
 
2 with a swan ...

3 with a sideways mustache ...

4 with a sailboat ...
8 with a snowman ...
... etc.
If you're going to create a "set and forget it" set of images
that you use all the time, it's important to make sure that
they come to you naturally. You should also put them into
use right away so that your mind learns these "keywords"
through use as well as memory.
And that raises a good point about mnemonics in general.
It's not just that we link one thing with another for fun. We do
it because these techniques are useful in ways that can
make a real difference in our lives. That's why you need to
use the techniques as soon as possible so that you not only
understand how they work, but you feel how they work also.
It is difficult to express just how good it feels to be able to
recall long strings of numbers with ease until you've done it.
But, once you've done it, you'll have a hard time not
"showing off" a little and teaching everyone you know how to
use these new skills for themselves.
Grouping
One neat strategy involves different kinds of grouping
numbers together. We've already talked about nuns
attacking lions for grouping 2 and 3-digit numbers and
you've seen how easy that can be. But what about a 7-digit
phone number?
Anchoring figures is one solution.
For example, let's say that you encounter a phone number
that starts with 2. The full number is 275-8923.
Assuming 2 is a swan in your single digit system, you can
use it to "anchor" the rest of the numbers. Starting at the
head, for example, you could see your friend Karl (k+l = 75)
sliding down the swan's neck to insert a viper (v+p = 89)
into a garden gnome's mouth where he is standing on the
swan's back (n+m = 23).
Let's break this down again:
The swan is the anchor = 2
K+L (Karl) = 75
V+P (Viper) = 89
N+M (Gnomes Mouth) = 23

Notice that correct spelling goes out the window in this

example. We're focusing on sounds alone using the Major
Method. At the beginning, it can take practice to make these
substitutions with speed. Yet, most people pick it up quickly.
You'll notice too that your mind has an amazing ability to
hone in on exactly what you need to recall the number. The
swan will come first, Karl sliding down the neck next,
followed by the viper and the gnome. You may even find that
you no longer need to mentally "see" these things. It will be
more than enough to think about the associative-imagery to
create the desired effect.
That desired effect of instantaneous recall is the closest
thing to real magic we have. You can use this procedure to
memorize almost anything. When it comes to numbers, you
can link any number that starts with 4 to a sailboat, with 8 to
a snowman and so on.
One thing you might be thinking is:
Hold on! I live in a city where everyone's number starts with
2. How many swans am I supposed to have floating around
in my head?
The solution?
Read on, dear Memorizer, read on. We'll deal with this in
detail in the next chapter. For now, let's read the ...
Chapter Conclusion
So far we've talked about unstructured approaches to
remembering numbers and semi-structured grouping. To
review: making single words like "animal" or "nun" amounts
to an unstructured process. Putting them together by having
the nun attack the animal is semi-structured.
We then added a bit more structure by using an anchoring
figure, in this case a swan.
Structure is important because the more of it you have, the
more you can let your mind fall back on it. In effect, building
structures reduces, if not eliminates, "cognitive overload."
What is cognitive overload? It's the consequence of having
so many things going on at once that your mind makes little
or no progress.
But, what if with a bit of forethought and preparation, you
could reduce, if not end, cognitive overload so that it never
stops you from using your memory again? What if there were
more structures we could use to give these powerful and
memorable images a permanent "home" in our minds?
Structures that are easy to find, easy to use and need almost
zero effort to use?
If the answer to these questions interests you, then I am
about to show you a fascinating technique. It is a technique
that will let you hold as many numbers in your mind as you
could ever wish.
 
Chapter Two: How To Build & Use A Memory Palace
 
In this chapter, you'll learn about the Memory Palace
concept. We're going to get into a lot of detail about
constructing well-formed Memory Palaces, but for now, sit
back, relax and let the concept sink in. Memory Palaces will
provide you with the ultimate organizational system, a cheat
or crib sheet for your mind.
 
The best part is using Memory Palaces to store information in
your mind is never cheating. Everything you've memorized
has been learned in a legitimate way. You just learned it
faster and more "magnetically" than anyone else did.
 
We've already talked about grouping. Memory Palaces take
your number memory game one massive step further by
"super-grouping." When you use all the techniques I've
already described in this book, you are in effect making your
mind "Magnetic."
 
As an important aside, let's look at this term "Magnetic," talk
about why it deserves capitalization and what it means for
you.
 
The Magnetic Memory Method uses the term magnetic for
two reasons. First, it is about attracting information in a way
that makes it stick in your mind for as long as you want.
Second, using the other feature of a magnet, the Magnetic
Memory Method helps you repel information.
 
Why would you want to repel information? Because there are
a lot of things that you don't want in your memory which
includes excessive information that causes cognitive
overload. The Magnetic Memory Method and the Memory
Palaces help you create and let you focus on the most
important thing: getting only the information you want into
your memory so that you can repel the rest.
 
For better or worse, it's difficult to explain exactly why this
occurs. But once you're using the Magnetic Memory Method,
you'll feel it.
 
What Is A Memory Palace?
 
A Memory Palace is a mental construct based on a familiar
location. It allows for rapid and efficient journeys where you
"meet" the associative-imagery you've created using the
techniques in this book. Memory Palaces are the best way to
store and recall information in a way that takes you to the
level of memory expert. They create such massive success
for Memorizers because they rely on actual locations.
 
Why Are Actual Locations So Important?
 
The answer is simple: The mind has the incredible ability to
recall places that you already know with ease. By "places,"
we mean buildings in particular, rather than outdoors
locations.
 
And this is why I suggest that you build Memory Palaces
based on buildings. My experience, along with feedback from
hundreds of my readers, demonstrates that buildings make
for better Memory Palaces. This is because they come pre-
structured.
 
Forest paths and beaches, on the other hand, come without
structure and you need to impose artificial order on them.
You need to impose order on buildings like your home too,
but in a way based upon an existing architectural order. The
patterns upon which you can "overlay" a reliable journey in a
forest in no way compare to the stability of a familiar floor
plan.
 
I do not want to confuse you with a contradiction here, but I
would like to invite you to hear an alternate opinion. Phil
Chambers, Chief Arbiter of the World Memory
Championships, gave us an interview on the Magnetic
Memory Method Podcast. In our discussion, Phil gives his
opinion about indoor and outdoor locations as Memory
Palaces. You can listen free here:
 
http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/phil-chambers-
talks-about-the-outer-limits-of-memory-skills/
 
Be sure to subscribe to the Magnetic Memory Method
Newsletter while you're on the site! :)
 
In brief, Phil suggests that outdoor Memory Palaces pose no
disadvantage compared to indoor locations. But we need to
keep in mind that Phil is also a distinguished Memorizer with
many years of experience. It's up to you to experiment with
what gets results, but my advice remains the same. Indoor
Memory Palaces come pre-structured. All you need to do is
chart a journey through them.
 
Memory Palace History
Before we begin learning to build Memory Palaces, it will
serve you to know a little bit about their history. No one
really knows about whether or not the following story is true,
especially given that there are so many variations of it to
choose from, but as we'll see, what really matters is that the
legend has clues about how to use memory techniques
within it. I suspect it is for this reason that the "origin story"
of Memory Palaces has survived.
Back in Ancient Greece, Simonides of Ceos (c. 546-468 BCE)
found himself giving a speech at a banquet before a group of
distinguished guests. The building collapsed and everyone
but Simonides died.
In some versions of the story, Simonides was called out of
the banquet by Castor and Pollux, mythical boxers who
represent heroism. There doesn't appear to be any reason
these two figures called him out of the banquet, but the
occasion did save him from being crushed to death.
Regardless of how the story is told, because Simonides knew
the secrets of combining images with locations, he knew
exactly where everyone in the building had been sitting and
was able to help the authorities identify the bodies so they
could be properly buried by the mourning families who would
never have experienced closure otherwise.
It is Simonides' ability to do this in combination with the
building itself that led to the creation of the Memory Palace
technique. The major point of the story that we will be
referring to many times in this book is that Simonides used
location to "store" and "revisit" memorized information.
The Important Mechanics of Memory Palaces
Location-based memorization is useful on many counts,
mostly because it allows us to leverage the mind's natural
ability to mentally organize space without significant effort.
Try this: close your eyes and visually reconstruct the room
you're sitting in with your imagination. Chances are that you
easily can do so. You might actually "see" it or only see a
kind of floor plan made of simple shapes. You may even only
"feel" or "sense" the concept of the room, but, one way or
another you can reconstruct the room in your mind.
After that simple task is done, mentally move out into the
hallway and reconstruct that space. Move throughout the
entire building, recreating its rooms and its nooks and
crannies in your mind. Work on making it visual, or simply
develop what is now becoming a Memory Palace in whatever
way works for you.
What we are doing in this exercise is using something we
already know to create a powerful mental "link" that can be
revisited at will with (almost) zero effort. We can place
information at various points in this mental construct,
"magnetize" that information by using associative-imagery
and then revisit it later in order to retrieve the information
we've memorized.
At least at the beginning, we want to always use what I call
"non-arbitrary spaces." They are non-arbitrary because they
mean something to us. These include places like:
Your home
Homes of relatives
Homes of friends
Libraries
Movie theatres
Hotels
Grocery stores
… and the list never really ends. You can always visit new
places at just about any time that you wish in order to
develop new Memory Palaces.
About The Term "Memory Palace"
Speaking of which, "Memory Palace" is the sexy term for
"non-arbitrary space." Some people don't like the term
"Memory Palace," so if you're already gagging at the idea of
using it as we'll be doing throughout this book, feel free to
find a replacement. I once coached on 80 year old man
through email who went on to memorize hundreds of lines of
poetry using the Magnetic Memory Method, but only after he
finally decided to call his Memory Palaces "apartments with
compartments" because he found the term "Memory Palace"
too hard to bear.
Whatever you do, don't let the terminology get in the way of
making progress with the techniques you're going to learn in
this book. Simply come up with your own if you don't like the
terms. Maybe you'll wind up writing a book of your own one
day and come up with something even more fashionable!
This raises the interesting questions of why we call them
"Memory Palaces" in the first place. There are many potential
answers, but one of my favorites appears in St. Augustine
(354-430 ACE). In his Confessions he wrote "And I come to
the fields and spacious palaces (praetoria memoriae) of my
memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images,
brought into it from things of all sorts perceived by the
senses."
This is important because Augustine is pointing out the
important fact that in order for Memory Palaces to become
useful, we need to combine locations with all of our senses in
order to create "treasure." By putting sensations together
with locations, we can make information Magnetic so that it
will come back to us whenever we wish.
You might also find it useful to know that location-based
memory techniques appear to have existed before people
like Augustine and Simonides worked with them. In her book
on the Buddha, Karen Armstrong mentions the use of
memory techniques in Yoga involving locations and the
Buddhist instructor Michael Roach has spoken in great detail
about how various meditations were remembered by the
monks by placing imagery in different parts of the temple.
For example, in a meditation which asks us to remember that
death is always behind us, monks were advised to place a
black dog at a particular part of the temple to remind them
of this principle. Interestingly, later religious traditions like
Catholicism would take such ritualistic reminders out of the
imagination and externalize them in the form of reliefs or
paintings on the walls of their churches in the form of the
Stations of the Cross.
The principle we learn from these practices is that we can
divide Memory Palaces into "stations" that form the stops
along a mental journey based upon "actual" journeys that
you can actually take.
There are in fact two types of stations:
* Macro-stations
* Micro-stations
A macro-station is an entire room (i.e. bedroom, kitchen,
living room, bathroom). A micro-station is an element inside
of a room (i.e. a bookcase, bed, TV set).
It's important to recognize the difference because at the
beginning stages of using Memory Palaces, it's often best for
people to start out with macro-stations until they get the
hang of the techniques. However, many people "get" how
this works right away and that enables them to make quick
progress right away with micro-stations.
The most important thing here is to get started ASAP. The
sooner you start experimenting, the sooner you can start
getting results from these amazing memory techniques.
Have a look at the following diagram.
 
Each of these rooms represents a macro-station. There are
four in total, five if you count the area in front of the
entrance.
Compare this with the same home, this time with labels that
indicate just some of the possible micro-stations in this
home:
By identifying a liberal amount of micro-stations within each
room, we now have 30 individual spots upon which to place
information that we want to memorize. Thus, it's a great idea
to work up to this level as quickly as possible so that you can
take advantage of Memory Palace journeys that offer this
many possibilities.
For the sake of completeness, here is a list of the stations
indicated in the image above:
Tub
Mirror
Sink
Drawer
Left bedside table
Bed left
Bed right
Right bedside table
Window
Bookcase
Sofa #1
Sofa #2
Coffee table
Window #1
Window #2
Entertainment center
Table
Window
Waste bin
Stove
Counter
Microwave
Sink
Fridge
Shelf
Rug
Kicker table
Photos
Clothes rack
Door
Exercise
In order to let the power of building a Memory Palace journey
sink in, take a moment to identify the Memory Palace macro
and micro-stations in your own home. It doesn't matter if it's
a house, an apartment building or a trailer. Even if you're
reading this in prison, you can build a Memory Palace using
your present location (I know this for a fact because both
prisoners and prison guards have written to me to tell me
about their experiences using them as Memory Palaces).
To fully benefit from this exercise, I suggest that you:
* Draw your Memory Palace by hand in a notebook
* Create a top down list
In other words, tap into both your visual imagination and
your conceptual, organizational imagination.
As you construct your journey through the Memory Palace by
identifying your stations, obey two key principles:
* Do not trap yourself
* Do not cross your own path
You want the journey you create to be linear because this
makes it easier to follow the journey in your mind and you
will spend much less mental energy when using the Memory
Palace to store and recall information.
Moving from the visual example I've given you on the
previous pages, let's look now at a real set of micro-stations
in a real Memory Palace that I actually use.
This is the office where I work. The bookcase stores books. I
use the bed to study the effects of meditation on memory
and research dreams. I use the desk and chair to write books
and work on music memorization, the wall to lean my guitars
on and the bike takes me home at the end of the day.
I also use all of these "micro-stations" to store information
that I want to memorize. By making the journey linear with
no path-crossing and moving towards a door so that I'm not
trapping myself, there is no confusion about what comes
next along the journey and mental energy expenditure is
kept to a bare minimum.
Now that you've had a look into just one room of just one of
my many Memory Palaces, are you beginning to see the
power of separating places that you already know into
individual stations so that you can use them to "drop" pieces
of information in order to access them later?
I certainly hope so because there is literally no other
memory system this powerful, and there is still so much to
learn.
Specificity
In order to be truly successful when using Memory Palaces to
store and retrieve large amounts of information, it's
important that each Memory Palace is selected with care.
Your Memory Palaces should be project specific. You want the
Memory Palaces you use to respond to specific needs.
For example, I've started learning Japanese. To deal with the
hiragana, I needed a Memory Palace with 48 stations that
were tightly linked together, but not overwhelmingly so. After
some thought, I drew a quick sketch of my girlfriend's
apartment. Within five minutes, I had 48 stations written out
in a list and 15 minutes later I had memorized both the
sound and the shape of 15 characters.
It's really that simple.
However, if I had picked a Memory Palace that was too small
or even too large and tried to work with it for this particular
set of information, I can predict based on long experience
with using Memory Palaces that my results would not be
nearly as fast or as easy.
Thus, we should always work towards having an economy of
means in our Memory Palaces. This term comes from the
theatre and from film and refers to using the absolute bare
minimum needed to express certain features of a story. A
character who is depressed is often cramped by the camera
to show isolation and despair. A character who is happy or
free is given more space. Space is never wasted and has
deep metaphorical value in most good movies.
In the world of Memory Palaces, too much space can lead to
"decompression." We often want to pack our Memory Palaces
tightly in order to maximize, not just the amount of
information we can store in them, but also the energy.
How do you learn about this and get it right?
By building and using Memory Palaces.
I can only give you the guidelines.
Only you can undertake the journey and experiment with
what works best.
Before moving on, another reason why you want to make
your Memory Palaces specific to the information you're trying
to memorize is because it helps you track your results.
For example, I told you that I memorized 15 hiragana
characters in 15 minutes, knowledge that I could easily
express because each station is counted. I could then predict
how much time I would need for the remaining characters
and budget my time accordingly. We're going to talk about
this issue more in the chapter on using index cards in
conjunction with Memory Palaces where you will learn how to
memorize massive amounts of information in an even more
structured way by deciding in advance how many stations
you'll need and choosing your Memory Palaces for
appropriateness before you even get started.
Chapter Summary
Choose your first Memory Palace by identifying a familiar
location. Many people suggest that you should use your own
home as a beginner, but I think you can be more
adventurous if you wish. Use your school, church, workplace
– nearly any indoors location will do, keeping in mind that
you want to make it indoors to maximize the effectiveness
and you want to be familiar with the location to the point
that even without revisiting it, you can create a journey
throughout the location in your mind and divide the journey
into stations.
When working with your first Memory Palace, decide first
whether you want to start with macro-stations or get right
into using micro-stations. My preference is for people to start
large with macro-stations and then narrow in to using micro-
stations, but I leave this to you. Ideally, you'll try both, but
there's only one first time and it's important not to frustrate
yourself if you feel in advance that using micro-stations
might be too much.
On the matter of overwhelm, make sure that you construct
your first Memory Palace journey in a way that neither traps
you nor enables you to cross your own path. This can be
admittedly tricky in some buildings and may mean that you
need to abandon features that you could otherwise use as
stations in order to keep a linear journey that does not lead
to crossing your own path or trapping yourself. But if you rely
upon the principles I've given you in this chapter, your
journey will be streamlined, easy to navigate and effective.
And if you're worried about not using all available space
because you've left a number of micro-stations behind, don't
worry about it. In the long run, it is always worth it to lose a
few stations in favor of having journeys that are clear, linear
and easily navigable. You do not want to lose mental energy,
certainly not when you'll be using your Memory Palaces for
the purposes of passing exams.
This is why it's important to focus on developing an economy
of means, a tight and focused approach to getting what you
want when you want it without having to remember anything
about the journey you created. This concept of the economy
of means works in film and it will work in your mind to create
compelling journeys that help you recall all the information
that you'll ever need to memorize.
When creating your Memory Palaces using these important
principles, draw them out and keep a top-down record.
This means not only creating the floor plan so that you can
see it visually, but also conceptualizing it logistically. By
putting the two mental processes together, your mind will
"solidify" each and every Memory Palace you create using
this process, the beautiful result of taking a few extra
seconds to let your brain interact with a location it already
knows using more than one perception modality.
As a brief aside, although the image I've created above may
not be sexy, that's the point. You don't need to be an artist or
a graphic designer. You just need to link your mind with your
hand in order to create a stronger link between what you will
soon rely upon only in your imagination and the reality of
that location in the real world.
This brief exercise will also help ensure that you can follow
the journey in your mind almost without thinking about it.
You want to move from station to station in your Memory
Palace in the same way you move from your kitchen to your
living room. We base our stations on elements that we are
familiar with for the precise reason that we don't have to
think about what comes next along the journey. We just
mentally go there.
And for true success, it's important to think about the
appropriateness of the Memory Palaces you choose. As a
student, Memory Palaces should always be project specific.
This means that you design them in response to specific
memory needs. If you need to memorize a number of
mathematical formulas, for example, you'll need to put in a
few moments of thought. Where do you know that would
best serve for memorizing math? What about Shakespeare?
History? Scientific facts?
Trust me: after years of doing this, I know that it makes
sense to put some thought into what purpose your Memory
Palaces are going to serve. Plus, because you draw them,
you can be scientific and test which kinds of Memory Palaces
work better in general, and which work especially well for
certain subjects.
Here's a key point: what you measure improves. Measure
your memory efforts by incorporating drawing your Memory
Palace floor plans and listing the stations and you'll see your
progress multiply, if not explode.
Do This Now
Create your first Memory Palace using a familiar location.
Give it at least ten macro or micro stations, or a combination
of the two. Don't fear the adventure if you want to go whole
hog!
Make sure that you don't trap yourself or cross your own
path as you mentally journey through the Memory Palace
and lock those stations down.
Draw the Memory Palace.
Keep a top-down record.
"Rehearse" the Memory Palace journey in your mind in order
to ensure that it "works" for the steps to come.
And if at any time you have questions, feel free to contact
me at [email protected].
Chapter Three: Bringing Memory Palaces & The Basic
Principles Together So You Can Memorization Any
Number, Equation Or Formula You'll Ever Encounter In
Your Life Again
In the previous chapters we've covered the use of
associative-imagery and the construction of Memory
Palaces. Now it's time to bring the two together.
In truth, there isn't much to say.
Once you've got well-constructed Memory Palaces under
your belt, the only thing to do is:

1. Code number information using

associative-imagery
2. Place that imagery on/beside/in/at stations in your
Memory Palaces
Of course, there are different kinds of math, so we should
talk about these.
The Times Tables
Many of us struggle with multiplication. We're often quite
good up until 6 and 7 times 8 or 9 rolls around. Some kids
have a hard time getting started with even the simpler
configurations.
There's a solution.
Let's imagine that your daughter or son struggles with the
times table.
One thing you can do is to help your child understand how
Memory Palaces work using your home.
Then, ask your child to explain which numbers present the
greatest difficulty.
Moving from station to station, help the child find ideas for
memorizing the outcomes of the equations.
For example, let's say that you start your journey in the
kitchen. You child needs to remember that 3x3=9.
For kids, simple rhymes can be effective, especially if you
make them visual. Here's one:
3 times 3 got a fine, paid the judge, the fine of 9.
This is a sample example only. Encourage everyone with
whom you discuss these techniques to come up with their
own imagery.
But as we've noted before, it's important to see the images
in your mind and locate them in a Memory Palace so that
you can revisit them later. You cannot decode the
information if you don't know where to find it. This is one of
the reasons why having a linear journey is so important.
To give you another example, (even though you do need to
come up with your own), take this one:
4 times 4, buying shoe-shaped beans, why buy 4 and not
16?
Remember when we talked about the Major Method? Here's
an example of where you can use it.
Let's say that you have placed this image (either for
yourself or as part of helping a child) in the hallway. Since
you now know the Major Method, why not come up with an
image for 44 and 32. Although you're not dealing with 44,
but 4x4, you can still create an image for it and understand
that 44 means 4x4. This is something you'll need to
experiment to see if it works for you.
Finally, (to obey the rule of threes), imagine that you're now
in the living room. Perhaps you or your child sees two
melting snowmen fighting over a jar.
8 times 8 (two snowmen) fell on the floor, pick it up, it's 64
(ja + ra = jar).
To some, this might seem like an insane amount of activity
just to remember simple multiplication outcomes. And
certainly some people won't need any of this.
But for those who struggle, it is imaginative methods like
these that can end the sweat and tears and make math fun.
Let's move on to formulas. Assuming that you'll be placing
this information in a Memory Palace, imagine that you need
to memorize e=mc^2.
You now have more than enough information about using
the Magnetic Memory Method to memorize letters and
numbers.
But what about that curious symbol? It's called a caret and
signifies exponentiation. When I needed to memorize this, I
placed it in the bathroom. And there I saw ...
Einstein with garden shears cutting the McDonald's symbol
in half. It had one cat ear ^ on it and its other ear was a 2.
What about c2 = a2 + b2?
Before you read on and examine my process, give it a try.
What could you dream up, knowing what you now know, to
memorize this equation?
For me, the first thing that came to mind was three nuns at
the sea looking at the abs on some men walking by. In the
grammar of my Magnetic Memory Method vocabulary, the
image translated to:
"See three nuns abs."
The nuns, as I'm sure you'll recognize, have to do with the
Major Method. For your benefit, let's look at that system
once again:
0 = sa
1 = ta or da
2 = na
3 = ma
4 = ra
5 = la
6 = cha, jah or sha
7 = ka
8 = fa or va
9 = pa
This is why the sight of three nuns reminds me that there
are three twos in the target equation. The fact that these
nuns are at sea reminds me that the equation beings with
"c" and the "abs" remind that "a" and "b" are also linked
with the number 2.
Don't worry. I can hear the question you're now asking:
What about "=" and "+"?
I suggest that you make a standard image for these that
you will always use.
"=", for example, could be vampire fangs. The "+" could be
a cross.
Thus, you could image "see three vampire nuns at the sea
dragging a cross while staring at abs."
Let's go one better.
Let's say that you also wanted to memorize that this
equation represents a Pythagorean triangle.
What do you think you could do?
I'm tempted not to tell you, just so that you'll come up with
something on your own. But since we're nearing the end of
this chapter, I'll reveal what I would do anyway.
I would see a python in the distance building a pyramid.
But what I see is not at issue.
What matters is what you see.
And what matters is that you create images that are large,
bright, vibrant and exploding with crazy action. You want to
create a "rubberneck" effect. This will "force" you to look at
the imagery when you come across it in your Memory
Palaces. It will be impossible not to "decode" what the
imagery means, almost effortlessly placing the memorized
information in your hands.
No equation or formula is too complex. With practice, you
can use the Magnetic Memory Method to master anything
you want to memorize.
And to prove it, I have a special gift for you.
Robert Ahdoot is an accomplished mathematician. He's also
the man behind Yaymath.org, a popular math-learning
resource from which you can benefit at any time. And now
even more so with the memory skills you've learned.
But just because Robert's a math whiz doesn't mean that he
has formulas memorized.
Quite the contrary. As he told me, he writes out formulas for
students from the textbook, not from memory.
Complex formulas.
Twisted formulas.
Long, snarling and daunting formulas.
Guess what?
I helped him learn how to memorize even the most complex
of these. In fact, he memorized 9 extremely complex
formulas in just 45 minutes using a Memory Palace.
And then we made a video together in which he describes
exactly how he did it. And he describes how incredible it felt
to make such an achievement.
I'm going to give you that video.
Here's the link. This is from my private Dropbox account so
please do not share it. It also includes the transcript of the
interview, which you'll also find at the end of this book:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o6a3dbanq9gbik6/AAALasFA4iP
SxcR2Om3VdEpCa?dl=0
Have you watched the video?
You have?

Good. Inspiring, isn't it?

Here are the most important points to consider about
Robert's Memory Palace work with these formulas:
1. He used a familiar location with meaning for him.
2. He drew upon narrative elements from his real life. These
elements involved drama and drew upon familial cliches.
3. Robert filled the images along his journey with vibrant
and intense action.
4. Robert packed his journey in a compact manner. In some
parts, he moved from one chair at the dinner table to the
next.
 5. Robert reviewed the material using Recall Rehearsal.
This process involved a minimal amount of time and
ensured that the formulas eased their way into long-
term memory.
It is on the matter of Recall Rehearsal to which we now turn.
This technique will not only ensure that the numbers and
formulas you've memorized go into long-term memory. It
will also exercise your imagination so that you can
memorize faster, memorize more and improve your mind.
 Chapter Four: How To Get Even The Most Difficult
Numbers, Equations & Formulas Into Long-term
Memory Using The Simplest And Most Elegant
Memory Technique In The World
The techniques you've learned thus far make it possible to
memorize any number or equation with speed and accuracy.
You've also learned how to create a Memory Palace and use
it. You, your child or any math student living under your roof
can now memorize the times table with speed and accuracy.
But the extent to which the memorized numbers will last
depends on a lot of factors. The easiest way to explain these
factors is to look at some theories and concepts of memory.
Then I will teach you about "Recall Rehearsal" so that you
can place any number of formulas into long-term memory.
Having done this, you can rest assured that the information
will be there when you need it.
Whom is long-term memory for? It is especially needed by
students wishing to pass formula-driven exams. It is also
helpful for those who perform calculations as an employee.
Or perhaps you're a self-employed computer programmer
who would enjoy the edge of having formulas on hand.
Being able to pluck them from memory saves a lot of time
compared to searching Google or rifling through books.
With these benefits in mind, let's see what you can do to get
any math information you need into long-term memory.
 Hermann Ebbinghaus
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) performed many memory
experiments. His findings are useful for those of us
interested in practicing memory skills at the highest levels.
You can find his ideas in a book called Über das Gedächtnis,
or Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology.
In this book, Ebbinghaus suggests that learning and
retention degrade based on time and position. In other
words, the order in which you learn something affects how
you will keep it. Thus, the more time you spend on
information, or the more "primacy" you give, the greater the
chance it will enter long-term memory.
The problem is that we tend to give more primacy to the
information we learn first. Ebbinghaus called this the
"primacy effect." We get tired, our attention wanes and a
whole host of distractions interrupt us. Even the first piece
of information we've learned can prove disruptive because it
may be so interesting or useful. Our interest in the initial
information interrupts our ability to focus on the next piece.
Another term Ebbinghaus uses is the "serial-positioning
effect." For our purposes, this term amounts to the same
thing, but we'll revisit it again further along because we can
"hack" it. The procedure you'll learn will enable you to work
memory miracles. Using this special technique, getting
mathematical information into long-term memory will be
easy.
Why is this important to number memorization?
It's important because we're using Memory Palaces. This
means that we're not only learning information in order, but
also memorizing it in order. And because this sometimes
involves long strings of numbers or formulas, we will suffer
from the "forgetting curve." This related principle, also from
Ebbinghaus, tells us something important. If you do not
practice information you have learned, over time you will
forget it ("use it or lose it").
But this doesn't have to be the case. Here's how:
I call this exercise "Magnetic Memory Method Recall
Rehearsal."
When you use it, you are literally rehearsing what you've
memorized as if it were a stage play.
A lot of people think of the mnemonic associative-imagery
as movies, but I think this is incorrect.
Why?
Because movies are the same every time you watch them.
Only you change.
But when it comes to moving through a Memory Palace, the
images are never quite the same. You are using the
combination of location, imagery and action to trigger recall.
This lets you "restage" the image-stories you've created. It
is a play. And it's also playful when approached in the right
spirit.
Quite frankly, in my not-so-humble, but always Magnetic
opinion, if this isn't fun, either you're doing it wrong, or
mnemonics simply isn't for you. I'm sorry to sound brutal,
but usually people haven't gotten the method down and
that's why they struggle.
You will eliminate much effort if you've taken care of the
following:
* You've created your associative-imagery correctly.
* You've placed it in well-constructed Memory Palaces.
In fact, get these two things right and everything will be
elegant, easy, effective and fun. For more help, I
recommend that you watch get my free Magnetic Memory
Method Worksheets. If for any reason you cannot click that
link, just type in
http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/free-magnetic-
memory-worksheets/.
With all this said, the only thing you have to do when it
comes to Recall Rehearsal is to find yourself a quiet place
and go through the material. Start at the beginning of your
Memory Palace journey and keep going until you've come to
the end.
You can do this mentally, but I recommend that you have a
pen and pencil. Write everything down from your memory.
Take care that you've removed yourself from the source
material. Don't have your textbook anywhere in sight so
that you won't be tempted to check your accuracy until
later. Your goal is to exercise and test your memory.
When finished, only then check your accuracy. If you find
any flaws in your recall, use what I call the principle of
compounding.
Back to testing your images, this stage of Recall Rehearsal
is simple. Once you've written everything out, go back to
the associative-imagery you've created. If you've found
problems, either add new material, streamline it or make it
bigger, brighter and more colorful.
Then Test Yourself Again.
When you're satisfied with your accuracy, use the Rule of
Five. This will reinforce the material for long-term
memorization. The Rule of Five comes from World Memory
Champion Dominic O'Brien. He suggests the following
review scheme:
First review: Immediately
Second review: 24 hours later
Third review: One week later
Fourth review: One month later
Fifth review: Three months later
Personally, I think you'll benefit more by reviewing more
often than this. Even so, O'Brien's basic layout is valuable
and you should keep it in mind.
My Suggestion Is That You Work Like This:
First reviews: Immediately, one hour later, three hours later,
five hours later.
Second reviews: The next morning, the next afternoon, the
next evening.
Third review: Once a day for each day of the following week.
Fourth review: Once a day for a week the following month.
… and from there on in, keep reviewing at least once a
month, if not more often for as long as you want to keep the
information intact.
If that sounds like a lot, it isn't. Depending on the amount of
material, you can rehearse dozens of formulas within 15
minutes or less. Beginners will need a bit more time, but the
speed and accuracy you can build by following O'Brien's or
my version of the Rule of Five is fast. Dedicated practice
based on an understanding of the principles is all you need.
The reason Recall Rehearsal is so much more powerful than
using index cards and rote learning is this:
Instead of using the "blunt force hammer" of repetition out
of the void, you are using your imagination. This
strengthens not only your memory, but your creativity as
well. And the more you do this, the better and faster you
get. Not only that, but you learn more. And the more you
learn, the more you can learn. This is because you'll have
more stored information in your long-term memory with
which to make connections.
Finally, to deal with the forgetting curve and to hack the
primacy effect, do the following during Recall Rehearsal:
* Travel your Memory Palace journeys forwards
* Travel them backwards
* Travel them from the center to the beginning
* Travel them from the center to the end
* Travel them by leapfrogging forward and backwards
By taking time to do this during your Rule of Five routines,
you'll ensure that the information enters your long-term
memory fast.
Give these techniques a try and be sure to tell me how you
do or let me know if you have any questions by emailing me
at [email protected].
 Chapter Five: How To Overcome Procrastination So
That You're Actually Using The Techniques In This
Book And Making Massive Leaps In Your
Understanding Of Math And Acing All Of Your Exams
This chapter will be useful for anyone memorizing math of
any kind. Without true understanding, even the simple
technique of using Memory Palaces can seem drab. Worse,
it can feel downright unexciting. If you struggle, this chapter
will put you in control of how you approach memorization
and Recall Rehearsal.
Then, in the second part of this chapter, we'll talk about
more about the principle of compounding. This will help not
only your retention of the math you've memorized, but also
troubleshoot any recall issues you may be having.
 Generating Excitement
I once read Mike Koenigs on speed-reading. For him, one of
the best methods for speed reading a book is to pretend
that you will be interviewing the author. Not only that, but
the interview will be taking place on live television the next
day. Millions of viewers will be watching, meaning that you'll
need to know the book well. You'll need to have a depth of
understanding and accuracy about the specific details of the
content.
I think Koenigs' idea is brilliant and adaptable to memorizing
math principles and formulas. When learning and
memorizing math, for example, you can pretend that you
have a book to sell. You know that people are only going to
want to own it forever if you are able to win their hearts by
speaking to them intelligently. You need to explain the math
you've memorized in clear, crisp terms. To amp things up,
when I use this technique, I sometimes pretend that a movie
deal is in the works. But it will only happen if I can convince
the producer that I know math well enough to consult on the
screenplay and production.
I know this sounds bonkers, but such "Jedi Mind Tricks" can
work well. They create excitement, motivation and urgency.
There are many motivational tricks like this. Anyone can
explore them. Once you begin, you'll find tricks that get you
excited. Yes, even if you don't naturally feel motivated to
learn and memorize math.
Just take these ideas, put them in place and experiment
with your own. Track your results and then rinse and repeat
what works.
Now onto the job of …
 The Principle Of Compounding
We've already covered this, but it's worth going into more
detail to ensure that you've got the full picture.
When memorizing information, you may discover that you
cannot perfectly recall one or two items. You feel sure that
your images are vibrant, well-located and buzzing with
action and energy. Yet, when you look for the math
principles or equations, you still struggle to recall them.
This hunt for the material can lead to stress and anxiety.
These feelings will make you self-conscious and increase the
struggle. You don't want this when taking a test and the
thought of stress alone will make you even more self-
conscious.
Relax. Refuse to be frustrated or concerned. Any slips in
your Memory Palaces are actually opportunities. When
approached with the right mindset, they will make you a
better memorizer, and you'll be studying the math at the
same time you compound, increasing your math knowledge.
When compounding, many of my readers replace the
original images they've created. I caution against this
because doing so can leave "fossils" that will only confuse
matters later.
The more popular term for this "fossil" problem in the
mnemonics community is "ghosting." However, I dislike this
term because our memorized material should not become
ethereal when it dies. If it must fade, it should leave a fossil
behind that we can "pour" energy back into.
So when you encounter associative-imagery that needs
work, add to the images and actions to enhance them. This
will improve your recall rate.
As always, please remember that having action in your
associative-imagery is key. It makes the target information
more memorable, and the more memorable it is, the more
readily available for recall it becomes. The good news is
there are many ways to compound images to make them
more memorable, especially when you relax while you work.
With that said, please realize that there is nothing wrong
with your mind if you find weaknesses in your Memory
Palace systems. It's just a matter of going back and
compounding the images. In most cases, a second pass will
do the trick. Any more than three passes suggests that you
need to go back and review the central tenants of the
techniques taught in this book. Or you can take my free
video course. Just visit www.magneticmemorymethod.com
to get started.
Finally, if you want to succeed with memory techniques,
avoid rote learning at all costs. The point is to rely solely on
your imagination. There aren't going to be any books or
index cards around when you're completing a test or
examination. During that test it is just you, your imagination
and the ways that you've used it to learn and memorize
math.
In addition to compounding your associative-imagery, you
might like to compound and reinforce the Memory Palaces
themselves. This is as easy as popping into the Memory
Palace and amplifying it as you would associative-imagery. If
your memory of some locations is not as strong as you
originally thought, work with another location altogether to
form a better Memory Palace. Memory Palaces are in
abundance, so if you feel like you're running out just review
the earlier parts of this book. I give you many ways to find
dozens of them.
Ultimately, the amount of time spent on rehearsing,
compounding and "renovating" your Memory Palaces and
the associative-imagery you place within them depends on
your level of experience and general enthusiasm for
memorization. Again, make sure that you complete the
preparation and predetermination exercises as fully as
possible. Giving them their full attention will save you plenty
of time and sweat later. But, when leaks in the system do
occur, no stress. Simply wander through your palaces and
make "repairs."
 Some Common Questions From Readers
Some of the questions that I receive on a regular basis
include:
* What do I do if my visual and/or conceptual imagination is
lacking?
* What if your representative examples don't work for me?
*What if I don't have images that so conveniently match a
mathematical principle?
In the first instance, please go back and reread the chapters
on the main principles of the Magnetic Memory Method.
These give you several ideas for improving your visual
imagination.
To revisit these ideas, a visual imagination is best developed
by learning to draw, by looking at art, by building pools of
famous actors/artists/sports celebrities/etc., and by actually
practicing these methods. Don't overthink the process.
Getting started and keeping going will teach you more than
anything else. Plus, there are resources like Wikipedia. This
alone will give you more than enough art to study. It also
features lengthy databases of actors/singers/politicians and
all the people you could ever hope to include in a Memory
Palace for the purposes of assisting your memorization and
recall of mathematical principles and rules.
Second, my representative examples are not designed to
work for you. I have given them so that you can model the
process. Many would-be Memorizers are unwilling to create
their own associative-images and spend hours scouring the
Internet for "mnemonic examples," or they try to get the
examples they read in memory books like this to work.
This approach confuses activity with accomplishment. Your
goal should be to learn how to create your own mnemonic
associative-imagery. You then learn to exaggerate the
images so that it creates memories that you cannot help but
recall, even if you tried.
Some people think I'm a little hardnosed about this stuff.
The truth is that Yoda in Star Wars was right.
"Do or do not. There is no try."
Another phrase that has helped me many times over the
years is this: "None of us works as hard as we think we do."
Now, you might be thinking: Wait a minute. Throughout this
book you've been talking about how easy and fun all this is.
Great observation.
And it remains true.
At the same time, effort is involved.
But that's not a bad thing. People often mistake "effort" for
"work." They don't realize that eating chocolate takes effort.
Kissing takes effort. Everything takes effort.
Everything has to do with how you approach the game. I
suggest that you approach it ...
Magnetically.
 Chapter Six: How To Defeat Procrastination Forever
Math students often complain that they cannot focus. Or
they claim that they haven't the will power to spend the
necessary time on learning.
To address this problem, here are a few points about
learning and concentration that I have picked up over the
years.
One way of thinking about learning and memorization is to
see them as two different skills. By the same token, learning
is memorization and all memorization is learning. The only
question lurking here is: do you have to understand what
you've remembered in order to remember it?
The answer, of course, is no. Many times I have learned a
word or formula and forgotten what it meant or how it
should be used. As discussed in a previous chapter, this is
why compounding images and rehearsal or revisiting the
palaces frequently is so important.
Yet, there are barriers that prevent us from taking these
important steps. One of the biggest impediments is
procrastination. We all procrastinate, and this is just
something for the sake of sanity that we have to admit to
ourselves. Since we all do it, there is really nothing to be
gained from punishing ourselves or feeling bad about our
procrastination. The fact of the matter is this: Sitting around
feeling bad for doing nothing inevitably leads to more sitting
around doing nothing. It makes the problem worse.
The author Tim Ferris, who made his claim to fame with
books such as The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body
discusses a very interesting method for dealing with
procrastination. He allows it to happen. He knows it is
inevitable, so he plans for it. One of the best quotes I've
heard from him is that we should "budget for human nature
instead of trying to conquer it."
The point is that we mustn't punish ourselves for skipping a
few days here and there. As Ferris suggests, we will do
much better over the long haul if we routinely schedule the
days we miss. Intentional procrastination can even be
inspirational.
Why?
Because as you are working, you know that some
vegetation time on the couch is just waiting for you to enjoy.
For more valuable tips on breaking the procrastination habit,
join the Magnetic Memory mailing list by visiting
www.magneticmemorymethod.com. A wealth of free
material awaits you.
 Chapter Seven: Two Relaxation Secrets For Studying
Math That Condition You To Excel In Tests And Exams
With No Stress, Worry Or Suffering
Harry Lorayne has pointed out that one of the reasons why
we can't remember the names of people we meet is
because we haven't paid attention to them in the first place.
He's right. I believe that tension, stress and not being
present gets in the way of the attention needed for Memory
Palace work.
The number one reason you want to be relaxed when you
learn math is because it will train you to be relaxed when
you are trying to recall the principles and formulas in an
exam setting. Nothing is worse than knowing something but
being unable to recall it due to nervousness or feeling like
you are on the spot.
To that end, I want to share with you some principles of
breathing that you can use while memorizing math.
We need relaxation in order to overcome such boundaries
since so many of us experience confidence issues around
our memories. Fortunately, this is easily done.
The two main strategies I use have wider applications than
memory work alone. I recommend using them every day for
general health as well.
I know of nine breathing techniques overall, one of which I
will discuss in this chapter. It is called Pendulum breathing.
The second involves progressive muscle relaxation.
 Pendulum Breathing
If you've ever seen a pendulum, then you know that there is
an interesting moment at the end of each cycle. This
happens when the pendulum seems to hang for an instant.
Then it moves a little bit more in the first direction before
falling back the other way. It does this back and forth.
Pendulum Breathing works much in this way.
To start with Pendulum Breathing, fill your lungs normally,
and then pause slightly. Instead of exhaling, breathe in a
little bit more. Let the breath out naturally and pause. Then
instead of inhaling after the initial exhale, exhale out a little
bit more. By circulating your breath in this way, you are
"swinging" the air like a pendulum.
This practice will reduce stress over once you are used to
doing it. Make it part of your daily practice while walking or
sitting at your desk. If you do nothing else, implement
Pendulum Breathing in your memory work. This method of
breathing makes Memory Palace construction and the
generation of images and associations so much easier.
Why?
Because you are putting yourself in a kind of oxygenated
dream state.
At first, it may seem difficult to concentrate on both your
breathing and doing imaginative Memory Palace building.
This is because in some ways, it is like being a drummer
who is creating three or four different patterns, one for each
limb. But with practice, the ability will come to you.
 Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Progressive Muscle Relaxation is relatively well-known, and
yet so few people practice it.
The work is simple: sit on a chair or lie down on a bed or the
floor. Next:
1) Point your toes upward and hold.
2) Point your toes towards the wall and hold.
3) Flex your calves.
4) Flex your thighs.
5) Flex your buttocks.
6) Flex your stomach muscles, lower back muscles, chest
and shoulders (all core muscles).
7) Flex your hands, forearms and upper arms.
8) Flex your neck, your cheeks and the muscles surrounding
your eyes.
Practice Pendulum Breathing as you do this, or at least work
to conjoin the flexing movements with your breathing.
Once you have achieved a profound state of relaxation and
all of your Memory Palaces have been built, sit with the
material you wish to remember. If isolating the principles
and formulas helps you, prepare an index card for each.
As ever, avoid rote learning at all costs. Let your Memory
Palace skills do the work. Compound your images when
testing routines reveal weaknesses. Just as you would relax
to remember, relax to test and relax to compound as well.
Again, realize that you want to practice relaxation during
memorization so that you condition yourself to be relaxed
when accessing the words later during tests and exams.
This is the key to Memory Palace Mastery
 Conclusion
There is much math to learn and memorize as you continue
your adventures with the Magnetic Memory Method.
Because a solid understanding of how Memory Palaces work
is critical to your success, let's conclude with some intensive
review. We'll also expand on some of the most important
Memory Palace concepts as we go through what you've
learned.
The first step is to create a journey, but not just any old
journey if you're using the Magnetic Memory Method.
Instead of simply creating a helter skelter path throughout
the building you are using, obey these four principles to
create effective Memory Palace journeys that will be fun to
use:
* Don't trap yourself
* Don't cross your own path
*Peer versus enter
* Select your "stations" with care
Let's review each of these principles in detail.
1) Don't Trap Yourself.
Over the years, I have found that many people I've worked
with wind up trapping themselves in their Memory Palaces.
This is because they start anywhere in their home at
random instead of thinking the journey through.
For example, I'm presently writing in the kitchen. But in this
home, the kitchen would not be an appropriate starting
point in this Memory Palace. This is because in order to have
more than two or three stops along my journey, I would
have to move deeper into the Memory Palace.
On the contrary, we want to move outward, towards an exit.
This is so that we can get outside and add new stations or
stopping points along the journey at any point we wish.
We always want to be able to add more stations.
Although a subtle point for true Memory Palace aficionados,
we also want to avoid "Memory Palace Claustrophobia." This
condition describes the feeling that there isn't enough space
for the images we have created and left at a particular
station.
I would be saying this tongue in cheek, but I have actually
heard from one of my readers that this is a problem for her.
And I believe it! Anything that causes you to concentrate on
matters other than the information you've stored in your
Memory Palaces needs to be avoided. Not trapping yourself
along any point of the journey is a good place to start.
2) Don't Cross Your Own Path.
This point is strongly related to the point about not trapping
yourself. If you have a computer nearby, I discuss this at
length in a free video on YouTube I created to help a reader
who sent me a map of one of his Memory Palaces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ6j5d7Dvgo
(If you're reading the print edition, or listening to the audio
edition of this book and don't feel like typing this address,
just search for "Metivier YouTube avoid memory palace
confusion" and it should pop up).
On the map, this reader shows how in order to move
through his house, he felt he had to cross his own path.
However, as you'll see based on the drawing he supplied,
we found a solution together.
You can easily follow these two principles by creating your
first Memory Palace station in a "terminal location." This
term indicates the innermost room in your home that you
can move outward from throughout the dwelling towards a
door leading outside. Main bedrooms situated in the back
corner of a home usually fit this description. In the first
home in which I created a Memory Palace, my office was the
terminal location.
The path I created was as follows:
My office
Laundry room
Bathroom
Bedroom
Wife's office
Living room
Hallway
Kitchen
As you can see, it was possible for me to mentally move
through the Memory Palace in a linear line without crossing
my own path or trapping myself. I also did not need to pass
through walls like a ghost, nor did I simply jump through the
Kitchen window out onto the street.
We avoid movements like this because such actions require
mental energy. Unnatural elements create "blips" in your
journeys. You will not want to deal with interruptions like
these when you use your Memory Palaces later to recall
information. Keep the journeys simple, linear and based on
what you would do in reality.
I should point out that you don't have to follow my advice
here. I'm making this recommendation based on years of
experience of my own and countless interactions with
readers of my books. They confirm that passing through
walls is the equivalent of crossing your own path because it
distracts from the primary goal, which is finding information
you've memorized.
Yet, it is important to experiment on your own. It is
impossible to rule out that such unnatural strategies won't
work for some people. I am providing tried and tested
guidelines, but ultimately each person needs to adapt the
principles to their own use. But if in doubt, move through
your Memory Palaces in the same way you would if you
were to walk through them along a linear path along which
you do not cross your own tracks.
3. Peer versus Enter.
Of course, if you're moving from room to room, how on
earth do you avoid not crossing your own path, especially if
you want to use multiple places inside of each room to store
memorized information?
The problem is easily solved. Instead of entering any room,
simply imagine that you are peering into it. If you identify
and create multiple micro-stations within the room, instead
of walking from station to station, simply cast your eyes (in
your imagination) around the room. There should be no
need to enter it.
The important point is that you want to make sure that you
circle the room clockwise or counter-clockwise depending on
the linear progression of the rest of your journey.
4. Select your "stations" with care. Instead of calling each
location within a Memory Palace "loci" (Memory Palaces are
already locations), I call these stops along the journey
"stations." And these stops literally are stations where you
leave the information you've encoded using the other
strategies discussed in this book.
There are at least three kinds of stations and a person using
the Magnetic Memory Method could certainly identify more.
These are:
* Macro-stations
* Micro-stations
* Virtual stations
A macro station is an entire room. If you use your bedroom
to store one piece of information, then that is technically a
macro-station. However, if you use the dresser, the window
sill, the left bedside table, the bed, the right bedside table,
the closet and then the bookshelf before exiting the room,
then these are all micro-stations within the room and the
room itself no longer technically qualifies as a station at all.
It's simply part of the route where you pause and peer in the
door to take a journey with the eyes in your mind around
the room.
Here's A Full Review Of
How To Get Started Building Your First Memory
Palace:
1. Identify a location with which you are deeply familiar. At
this point, you should use a building to which you currently
hold some connection. Again, it doesn't have to be your
home. It could be your office or your school. However, avoid
things like large campuses. Use a relatively contained
structure with a number of rooms connected by hallways
and/or staircases.
2. Find 10 "stations" within the location, which is now
officially a Memory Palace in your mind. You will use these
stations as "drop-off" points for the information you want to
memorize. A station can be an entire room or just part of a
room.
I recommend starting with entire rooms at the beginning.
But if you feel ready to "peer" into rooms by giving them
multiple stations, by all means do so. You will learn about
your thresholds and limits as you explore the Magnetic
Memory Method. And as you explore, your mental abilities
will extend.
3. It helps to draw out the floor plan of the Memory Palace
on blank paper or graph paper. Again, visit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ6j5d7Dvgo
or search for "Metivier YouTube memory palace confusion"
and you'll find a video depicting exactly how one of my
readers has drawn out his Memory Palace and how to
troubleshoot a small problem he had.
As an alternative to drawing out your Memory Palaces, you
can also create a top-down Excel file. I usually do both, but
it depends on the purpose for which the Memory Palace is
intended.
To see an example of how you can use an Excel file to keep
record of what you've done in a Memory Palace (including
the Memory Palace itself), visit:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMPMuOyfke4
(or search Google using the keywords "Metivier YouTube
Excel file Memory Palace).
Whether you draw or use an Excel file (or both), number
each station in the Memory Palace in sequential order.
Ensure that your journey starts in a terminal location (i.e.
you've eliminated the possibility of trapping yourself within
the Memory Palace). Plus, make sure that your journey
moves in a linear line without crossing your own path.
4. Do all of these activities in a state of relaxation. Revisit
the chapter in this book on the role of relaxation in
imaginative Memory Palace work (i.e. play) if needed.
5. Test your Memory Palaces. Mentally wander through them
and make sure that you can move from station to station
without spending undue focus on the journey. The journey
should be natural and closely resemble how you would
move from station to station if you were really going to walk
through the building.
6. Amplify your Memory Palaces. This means that you take a
small amount of time to concentrate on your journey to
make sure that it is vivid in your mind. A lot of people skip
this step, assuming that because they are so familiar with
the locations upon which they base their Memory Palaces
that this isn't important. In many cases this is true.
However, personal experimentation and the feedback I've
received from those experiencing monumental success from
the Magnetic Memory Method demonstrates that taking just
a few seconds to mentally walk through the Memory Palace
and concentrate on the colors, the lighting and even the
materials along the way greatly enhances the Magnetic
"stickiness" of the Memory Palace. Personal experience will
undoubtedly demonstrate that this is true for you too.
One very interesting reader and a participant in my video
course, "How to Learn and Memorize the Vocabulary of Any
Language," shared the experience that her Memory Palaces
were intensely vivified by walking through the Memory
Palace and running her hands along the walls. I've
experimented with this myself and it works gangbusters.
Depending on the layout of your house, you can do this with
your eyes closed for extra imaginative benefit.
Once you've gone through this procedure once, you can do
it again and again. And because you now understand some
of the basic principles behind truly effective Memory
Palaces, you can be certain that the information you store in
them will be easy to access each and every time you stroll
through a Memory Palace in your mind.
More On Gathering Memory Palaces
One of the many elements distinguishing the Magnetic
Memory Method from other trainings is my emphasis on
creating lots of Memory Palaces and then organizing them in
a particular way.
The classical method of organizing multiple Memory Palaces
involves a "Grand Central Station" Memory Palace. Imagine,
for example, using your high school. In effect, high schools
are a collection of rooms connected by corridors.
When used as a central station for your Memory Palaces,
instead of mentally walking into individual classrooms,
these doors would lead into different houses you've lived in,
other schools you've attended, shopping malls, etc.
I know that this option works well for some people, but I've
found that it confuses the majority. You have to remember,
for example, which door leads to which Memory Palace, and
since there are so many doors and so many Memory
Palaces, people both new to the game and filled with
experience can get confused.
Ultimately, there is little to be gained from this process of
linking together Memory Palaces based on real locations
using an invented Central Station.
Why?
As you'll recall, a fundamental rule of the Magnetic Memory
Method is that we must reduce or eliminate everything that
costs mental energy. When it comes to creating Memory
Palace journeys and maintaining our networks of Palaces,
using an invented gathering place filled with a variety of
doors will certainly cause confusion for many people. This
problem and its solution can all be summed up in one
simple phrase:
The Less You Have To Remember, The More You Can
Remember
It's a paradoxical equation, but it's a fundamental premise
of mnemonics that is never discussed. The architecture and
principles we are building do have a learning curve, but
once the Magnetic Memory Method becomes second nature,
it is like a very light software code that floats in the
background. But plug it up with too many invented things
and then you have to essentially rebuild the Central Station
every time you visit it.
The Better Method
If we're not going to use a "Grand Central Station" to
connect our Memory Palaces, what other options have we?
Undoubtedly, there are countless ways, but I have found
that using the alphabet as a structural connector works the
best.
First, the alphabet is not a building, and yet it is still a
structure. It begins at A and proceeds to Z in a regular and
predictable manner. If you find yourself at D, it's easy to
figure out that C precedes this letter and E follows. If your
mind magnetically zooms to Y, then it is not an enormous
feat of mental energy to see that X and Z are its closest
neighbors.
But due to the nature of how we are going to assign Memory
Palaces to different letters, we will never have an issue
finding them because each Memory Palace will be
alphabetically labeled.
Construction begins, then, by seeking out twenty-six
Memory Palaces, each of which begins with a unique letter
of the alphabet. For example, when I first created a 26-letter
Memory Palace system, I used shopping malls, my high
schools, but mostly the homes of friends. I now have
multiple Memory Palace systems (akin to alphabet keys on a
chain that are themselves alphabetically arranged according
to subject) and here is a representative example that you
can use to start thinking about and generating a network of
your own:
A: Aberdeen Mall
B: Brock High School
C: Clark's house
D: Dawn's house
E: Eric's house
F: Frank's apartment
G: The Garage (concert hall)
H: Heather's house
I: Ian's house
J: Jessica's house
K: Kane's house
L: Liam's house
M: Paramount movie theatre
N: Northern Face store
O: Owen's house
P: Paul's house
Q: Quinn's house
R: Ryan's house
S: Simon's house
T: Trevor's house
U: Uncle Lloyd's house
V: Valleyview High School
W: Walter's house
X: Library
Y: Yolando's house
Z: Zoltan's movie theatre
Let me offer a few notes on the choices here. Not all of
these names represent exactly what they suggest. For
example, Zoltan didn't own a movie theatre. He was the
contracted janitor who hired me to work there from 12-5
a.m. while I was a young university student struggling to
pay the bills while I took the only undergraduate course I
could afford that year (thanks Zoltan!)
Likewise, "Yolando" is the nickname of a friend whose real
name actually starts with an 'E.' You'll also note that
"Paramount movie theatre" is used as the "M" Memory
Palace.
Stretching things in this way is to be avoided, but not
denied. This is because the mind will naturally bring you
ideas, especially when you build your Memory Palace
network in a state of relaxation. It's important not to resist
unless you feel that the association is too far out of whack
and that you'll have to expend energy memorizing it. As
mentioned several times already in this book, unnecessary
expenditures of mental energy are to be avoided at all
costs.
At this point, you may be thinking that the Magnetic
Memory Method is a huge investment of mental energy just
to get started.
Not so. It will take you between 2-5 hours to get set up and
using the full powers of your imagination to hold, maintain
and use a system of Memory Palaces.
If you have any doubts about their power, I encourage you
to read this article by a woman named Amanda Markham in
Australia who used the Magnetic Memory Method to
memorize 200 words of Arrernte in just 10 days:
http://anthroyogini.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/learning-an-
aboriginal-language-a-quick-dirty-guide-to-learning-
grammar/
If you're reading the print edition or listening to the audio
edition of this book, you can also simply Google the
keywords: "learning an aboriginal language quick and dirty
guide."
What I like about Amanda's article is that she includes
examples of her Excel files, which allows you to see how
someone has used them to achieve a memorization miracle.
Naturally, she has followed the key principles we've talked
about so far, including not trapping herself within her
Memory Palaces and not crossing her own path.
All of what she says applies to memorizing math.
Where To Find Memory Palaces
We've already touched on the use of living spaces and work
places for building and developing Memory Palaces.
However, I'm often asked for more ideas and my answer to
the question boils down to the following:
Memory Palaces are surprisingly easy to discover. Although
you may not be a person like myself who has moved from
city to city and moved several times within each city while
attending multiple schools and working all manner of odd
jobs during my younger years, I'll bet that you've lived in
more than one house or apartment.
Assuming you have friends and family, you've also visited
countless homes of other people. Your personal history is
likely also rife with movie theatres, libraries, museums and
if you can think in a structured manner about outside
locations, there are also parks, forest trails and
neighborhood walks at your command.
Wherever possible, it's good to take a walk around locations
that you will use as Memory Palaces to amplify your
memory. For example, if you can visit an old school, you
won't necessarily improve your memory of the structure,
but you'll make the location more vivid – and this means
that it will be more Magnetic.
Now that you've learned about Memory Palaces, the next
major step is to always keep one simple fact in mind: every
place you visit can potentially become a new Memory
Palace. You can deliberately focus on the location by paying
attention to it in a completely new way, an intentional way
that will make the layout even more memorable.
If revisiting locations isn't possible, you can look at old
photographs, or in some cases, use Google Earth or Google
Maps. In the case of public places, you can often search
"blueprints" or "floor plans" and see representations of
locations ranging from public libraries to shopping malls to
casinos. In fact, I was given this idea by someone who
wanted to use a casino he'd once visited and searched the
Internet for a floor plan to help reconstitute his memory of
the layout.
There are endless ways to revisit locations, and again, keep
in mind that if your past happens to be limited, you can
always strike out into the future by visiting new locations
with a prospector's eye. There is truly no end to the Memory
Palaces you can build.
Once you've compiled a list of candidate locations, I
recommend filling out the Magnetic Memory Worksheets.
These can be downloaded here:
http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com/free-magnetic-
memory-worksheets/
It should take you only an hour or two to complete them.
When you've done so, you'll have a 26-Memory Palace
network with ten stations in each Memory Palace. Because
you are following the principles of not trapping yourself and
not crossing your own path in these Memory Palaces, you'll
be able to add new stations to individual Memory Palaces
later. If you're not using the special, Telesynoptic Memory
Palace technique taught in other books I've written (this
technique is actually more appropriate to memorizing
poetry so please forget I mentioned them unless you're truly
interested in the next level in Memory Palace technology),
you can also assign more than one Memory Palace to each
letter of the alphabet.
For example, you could have:
A1
A2
A3
B1
B2
B3

B4
This strategy can be especially handy when using Memory
Palaces to acquire the massive amounts of mathematical
principles and formulas.
The Magnetic Memory Method Is Perfectly Suited For
That!
In sum, the building and development of Memory Palaces
takes only a small amount of time and effort. The next step
is learning how to fill the Memory Palaces you've prepared
with the information you want to memorize. This could be
anything, ranging from facts, lists of historical figures,
foreign language grammar or names and faces.
As a final suggestion, as you are filling out the Magnetic
Memory Worksheets, concentrate on the journey and make
it as vivid as possible. You can literally close your eyes and
pretend that you are "turning up the volume" on the
Memory Palace.
You can try this in the room you are currently in,
reconstructing it in your mind and then making the layout
bright, vivid and pumping with energy. It should almost be
as if you're casting some kind of spell or attempting to
manipulate reality like Neo in The Matrix. And manipulating
reality you are.
Next time you are out for a walk, shopping or just wandering
around the house, consider the hundreds of locations you
can use to build and extend Memory Palaces. The more we
pay attention to our surroundings, the more material we
have to work with.
As well, take every opportunity to visit places you've
previously lived or gone to school. Revitalizing your
familiarity with the locations you use to build your Memory
Palaces is not entirely necessary, but at the very least, you
should perform a mental walkthrough to ensure that you
have enough material for at least the first 10 stations and
ideally many more.
In addition, utilize the power of your imaginations and the
images it brings you. Harness the power of coincidences
such as those I related in the examples given in this book.
Make sure to remember the bicycle metaphor for memory
and suit the principles to your own needs by making
adjustments to the system taught in this book. You should
never be afraid to play around, amplify and use absurdities.
Test yourself and compound regularly or when necessary.
And always, always relax when doing memory work.
You should also spend time thinking about the kinds of math
principles you would like to learn or need to know. You
should analyze how you can group different rules together
and develop your understanding of math based on your
areas of interest and goals. You will see many more
connections by doing this.
It goes without saying that you should recite the math
principles and equations you've memorized as often as you
can. Practice Memory Palace recall while speaking with
friends or study partners. This means searching for the rules
using a specific principle or formula (mentally walking
through your Memory Palaces), rather than casting a hook
and hoping a math rule swims by and bites.
Finally, teach others what you have learned about
memorization skills. Talk about how you built your Memory
Palaces, the techniques of location, imagery and activity.
Give your friends and colleagues examples of how you've
memorized specific lines. Teaching others is one of the best
ways to compound information that we've learned and it
allows us to see other possibilities and new techniques we
may have missed.
From this point on, you are now more than equipped to
succeed with the Magnetic Memory Method. I hope that the
examples and instruction throughout this book have helped
you see the possibilities and options you have for creating
images along dedicated Memory Palace journeys that
enable you to memorize math concepts. If you have any
questions, you can contact us through me at any time. My
email is [email protected] and I endeavor to
answer all questions normally within 24-72 hours.
 About the Author
Anthony Metivier completed his BA and MA in English
Literature at York University in Toronto, Canada. He earned a
second MA in Media and Communications from The
European Graduate School in Switzerland while completing
a PhD in Humanities, also from York. As the author of
scholarly articles, fiction and poetry, he has taught Film
Studies in Canada, the United States and Germany. He plays
the electric bass and is the author of the novel Lucas Parks
and the Download of Doom and The Ultimate Language
Learning Secret.
Be sure to visit http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com for
access to the free Magnetic Memory Method Podcast where
you'll hear interviews with memory experts like Jim Samuels
and Harry Lorayne (subscribers only) and language learning
giants like Luca Lampariello, David Mansaray and Sam
Gendreau. You'll also find Anthony Metivier's amazing
"Memory Training Consumer Awareness Guide," "Memory
Improvement Master Plan" and much, much more!
How To Memorize 9 Complex Formulas in 45 Minutes:
Bonus Interview with Math Expert Robert Ahdoot
If you haven't already, as a reader of this book, you are
entitled to view this video at no charge and with no strings
attached. Here's the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o6a3dbanq9gbik6/AAALa
sFA4iPSxcR2Om3VdEpCa?dl=0
Here's the full transcript, edited for readability:
Anthony: Why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself
and then tell us what you've been working on the last couple
of days.
Robert: My name is Robert Ahdoot, the founder of
YayMath.org. And I found my way to you through the un-con
school. What I do at Yaymath.org is record my math video
lessons live in the classroom. I dress up in costumes and Yay
Math has been in existence for five years. We have over 5
million views and about 1.5 million minutes viewed per
month because people really enjoy the live student
interaction with teacher, the spontaneity, the authenticity,
the imperfection. And it is through this, that I found my way
to you, over the last few days after our initial conversation.
Since then, I've learned about what you do and have seen
how your practice of helping people use their memory is
accomplished through the Magnetic Memory Method.
So I've been learning about the Magnetic Memory Method
and I've been trying to put your tactics to use to help me in
my practice of memorizing math formulas because I mean,
even though I'm a math teacher, there's a slew of formulas I
still need to reference and look at my own crib sheets to
recall. However, at your suggestion, we're going to be
creating a mental crib sheet for me to memorize formulas
and that's what I've been doing. Pretty recently, it actually
didn't take me that long and I can't wait to share what I've
done with you and see what you think.
Anthony: Okay. So say a little bit more about these
formulas. What kinds of formulas are they? What
characterizes them and what region of math do they belong
to, so to speak?
Robert: So they're statistics formulas. Statistics has been
my latest craze, my latest passion. It's a sub-section of
mathematics that I've been filming most recently and that
I'm admittedly the newest to, which has been very exciting
to learn on the fly. So I'm using your methods to help me
remember these formulas for myself. And not only that, I'll
be able to usher this methodology to class after class after
class that I end up teaching and give them these same tools
so that they won't always be always fretting about what the
formulas are or how to use them.
One of the number one questions I get is, "What are all the
formulas we need for the test?" They say that. I end up
writing them on the board and then just by repetition, I end
up remembering them – not always. And sometimes I don't
remember them and I say like, I would have to commit them
to short-term memory and that's what students do, but using
this Magnetic Memory Method, hopefully it'll be committed
to long-term memory. And I hope to demonstrate that to you
today and it's going to be fun! Can I tell you about the
process about what it was like for me?
Anthony: Yeah. Absolutely. But one thing I think would be
very interesting for people is, in terms of getting these
formulas into long-term memory, what are one or two or
even more of specific benefits beyond just passing a test
that you could think of that someone is going to benefit from
in having this ability?
Robert: Okay. That's a good question. Because I definitely
refuse to teach towards tests. I believe that we need some
form of assessment for students in general, but I think the
confidence that students, such as me in this case, can pick
up a process on the fly and completely learn something that
they previously had not known nor were able to do well. I
mean it's one thing to just write down formula after formula
after formula and just try to commit it that way, but the
process was very invigorating, I've got to say because I was
able to take these things – and it was their story and images.
That's some of the things that you talk about. And it was fun!
So, not only does it increase the confidence in my own
capacity to learn, but it makes the process of learning fun
and that's pretty hard to do generally when it comes to
memorizing formulas. They're just a bunch of symbols to the
person looking at them for the first time. But, turning that
sort of process into a game or a stroll down memory lane, it
was kind of cool to be able to do that. So I appreciate that.
Anthony: Okay. So, tell us then, about your process.
Robert: Okay. Yeah, the process. I don't know if you've
known this and I've been curious to talk to you about this. If
you're going into what you call a Memory Palace and you're
conjuring up images from your life that are personal to you,
in fact maybe very near and dear to you, I think it's just a
matter of time before you trip up over some sort of
emotionality or even vulnerability. It becomes almost like my
process what I'm going to reveal to you today is stuff that I
grew up with as a kid. Normally, if you and I were talking – as
much as I enjoy your company and enjoy hearing what you
have to say – I wouldn't really talk to you about what I did
when people got snappy in my house. You know? And that
happens in this story.
People get snappy and I'm replying to them in formula. I'm
replying to them in formula speak and so there's a level of
vulnerability that is required – at least for myself to face this
type of stuff and then, furthermore to be able to project that
out and share with other people. Have you noticed that,
that's normal? It's not necessarily going into a building and
floor 1, 2, 3 with an elevator and that makes sense. It could
be like something occurred in that building or people were in
that building that conjured up something from your past. Is
that normal or is that just me?
Anthony: Yeah. It's certainly something that – I haven't
really myself experienced that. I'm a pretty neutral guy and
sort of scientific about things and for some reason I just have
a kind of clinical ability to use the Memory Palace without
really running into ghosts so to speak. There are people who
have told me that they cannot use certain places because of
a history of violence or some sort of thing that has happened
in that house or association. And that would be that they're
bumping into either a direct or indirect memory.
The other thing that sort of goes along with this is you
mentioned that there were things you wouldn't really want to
relate that have gone through your mind in order to
memorize some of this material. And this is one of the most
controversial things about mnemonics and memory
techniques and memory tricks or whatever you want to call
them is that they do involve certain extreme images that can
incorporate sexuality, violence, usually cartoon violence, but
violence nonetheless because you're trying to evoke what I
would call the rubberneck effect, like a car accident, you
simply have to turn your head and look.
There's just something about our ability to imagine things
that can be quite shocking. And that, in itself, creates
emotional reactions. And that's certainly something that was
a problem for me because it's not always the most pleasant
thing to think about these sorts of things. But at the end of
the day, it's the difference between being able to memorize
something and not being able to memorize it. And the fact of
the matter is that the mnemonics, the associative imagery
are tools and if you do the exercise correctly, they're really in
fact, short term and you don't need to obsess upon them or
anything.
So the most important thing that I think, and you don't have
to go see Dr. Freud to do it, is just simply not to judge your
images. Just go with what comes to your mind. Have a
clinical distance to them. Don't get too involved, but if there
is emotion there and it's comfortable, then definitely exploit
it. Leverage it. Use it for all it's worth. And just to quickly add
something, the history of mnemonics was deeply suppressed
in certain historical periods because of this character. It was
considered blasphemy, for example, to use associative
imagery to memorize biblical verses because of the kinds of
images that are used. So they are certainly things that are
very controversial in that area, but my advice to anybody is
just to develop a bit of scientific distance from it and when
emotions comes that you're uncomfortable with, then use
them for all they're worth because what is memorable can
be linked to what isn't memorable in order to make it
memorable. And that's a very, very powerful tool.
Robert: Nice. Nice. And definitely, I think fortunately I've
walked the border or a fine line of exactly what you're
saying. It's basically what I would never have really had a
need to share with you, but if you and I were sitting over a
couple of beers, I would have no problem talking about what
happened in my old house. And I plan to right now! So, it's
kind of a fun way to get to know me.
Anthony: We'll have beer later.
Robert: Yeah. Or we'll just do it over Skype and just talk
about my childhood through statistics formulas. I mean,
you've got to say, it's kind of – it's just kind of nifty. So yeah,
it has definitely brought up stuff, but nothing in a way that
was detrimental. And I definitely leveraged the emotion to
get into it. So I have like hand motions. So I'm psyched. Can I
show you what I've learned?
Anthony: Yeah. Please, by all means. But let's have a look at
the formulas first:
Robert: All right. Great. So we moved out of my childhood
house many years ago, maybe 10 years ago. I was growing
up in Maryland. I figured that was the first place to start if I
was going to do this Memory Palace technique to go back to
the place where I grew up because I haven't been there in so
long and this would be a great way to experience it. So here I
come. I figure I'm walking through the door. So stop me if
there's anything I can do better. I'm new to this, but I'm
trying it out hard.
So I walk through the door and I get to the dining table.
That's the first thing there. Something that's going on usually
when we're dining is that for some odd reason, we never
really had an emphasis on napkins when we were dining. It's
like napkins were, oh, yeah, I can use a napkin, but I never
really thought to use one until one was offered. So that has
gotten me in trouble over my life with manners and things
like that at tables as an adult.
So I walk in to this dining table full of everyone, family,
extended family and I say to them Napkin! And then, they
look back at me and they're like, Napkin X and that's the X I
have to think of. They're just saying to me. So they say,
Napkin, No. And then they say No for emphasis. And I say
back to them, please, please stop with the X. And an uncle
that I know, is sort of like a peacemaker and he goes, Quit
saying X to the napkin request. So it's like I saw, I want a
napkin. They said No to the napkin. They said No twice. I said
Please, stop saying X (no) and then someone said, quit
saying No to the napkin request, which is sort of played out
in my mind there. What do you think? Am I on the right track
here?
Anthony: Well a lot depends on what formula that allows
you to write out on a piece of paper.
Robert: That was the binomial distribution formula, binomial
probability.
Anthony: Okay. And…
Robert: Do you have it with you? Can you follow along?
Anthony: Yes. So the binomial distribution. This Memory
Palace journey enabled you to recall the binomial probability
distribution – the name of the formula or actually the formula
itself?
Robert: The formula itself.
Anthony: So what about the napkin makes – I see there's an
N in the formula.
Robert: That's the N for napkin. That's where my mind went.
Anthony: But what does it really represent?
Robert: It represents the number of trials within – it's like
trials meaning like flipping of a coin or rolling of a die or
something like that. It represents the number of trials.
Anthony: Oh, okay. And then you mentioned the X coming
two times. And I see that there.
Robert: Yeah. They say No to the napkin request and they're
saying with emphasis. That's why that factorial symbol is like
sort of exclamation. It's an easy segue. It's sort of like No! No
napkin! No twice.
Anthony: Okay.
Robert: I feel weird.
Anthony: It is weird, but the fact of the matter is that it's
working. And one of the strange things, one of the really
weird aspects of all of this is that we can explain to other
people how that we came to be able to recall something by
decoding this imagery. But ultimately these examples are
useful only to us. So if you put mnemonic examples into
Google, you will find thousands, if not millions, of people who
have shared examples. And I think they're a barrier to entry
for a lot of people because, okay, napkins, your family, this
sort of thing. It only makes sense to you. But people really
have to make their own, like you've done. And it's wonderful
that you're able to recall that and I assume that, that's going
to have a particular function in an exam or in a practical
setting where you're trying to calculate something that will
enable you to accomplish a goal.
Robert: Right. You're creating the ability for people to do it
themselves. That's what you're trying to do. You're not trying
to learn it for them. You're trying to help them learn it for
themselves. And I get that. I get that. All right. Continue our
next question.
Anthony: How does that feel to be able to do that?
Robert: I'm saying that I am an academic so I jumped in
with two feet and I will admit that the process was weird
because it was against the methodologies that you've
already learned before. We're indoctrinated with these
learning models, just speaking from one educator to another.
We're indoctrinated with learning models that pretty much
stop more or less at, are you a visual learner? Are you an
auditory learner? Are you a kinesthetic learner? Do you learn
by doing or some sort of combination of those? And then
there are students who say, I need to be shown or I need to
look at it or I need to listen. And we stop there.
What's cool is that this is creating an entirely different genre
where you're going into your own mind and taking a stroll
and that, to me, is weird, but in a very good way because as
long as you have a sense of adventure and you're open for a
challenge in something that is new, then I think it can work
well. So that was the process. It was like, I was for it, but I
had to get over the act of going like (watch video to see
Robert's gestures) I was doing this to myself in the room,
empty room chilling here. I was like, X X, what am I doing? I
think of family feud, the show, that's what comes to my
mind. Mnemonics that are only personal. Family feud has
that thing, it was like, let's see Eggs and it was like X No.
Eggs is not an answer.
Anthony: It raises an interesting point, actually, because
there is benefit from actually incorporating physical
movement into it. And also actually moving. If you are using
a Memory Palace that you actually have access to, there's
also a benefit to being in it and moving from room to room.
So one of my greatest experiments with that was
memorizing the lyrics to a song in German and actually
physically moving from station to station in the memory
palace as I recited it.
And to what extent that is actually necessary or helped the
process, I don't particularly have any hard data or anything
like that, but it's just sort of a memorable thing to do and it
just adds, it compounds, it gives more oomph to the process,
if you can do that. I also heard something from someone and
I tried it myself. It was very interesting. She walks through
the Memory Palaces that she can actually visit with her eyes
closed, running her hands across the wall to increase this
sort of sensory, spatial material memory of the place itself
which is part of this whole idea of the Magnetic Memory
Method, that you're magnetizing things by how you're
treating them or using them.
Robert: Right. That makes sense.
Anthony: So let's hear another one.
Robert: Okay. Sure. So my reply to all this X, to my napkin is
when I say to them, when you go like X this to me, it makes
me have negative feelings about you. It makes everyone
have negative feelings about you. So you going like this X
makes everyone negative to you. So take it back and back to
you. It was like a sort of retaliation. So if you have the
formula, you'll see that it's Mu, which is the mean. It's like a
U. It looks like a U. When U go like this X, it makes everyone
E, the exponential, feel negative about U and so I retaliate by
doing it back to them. X
Anthony: Now I'm seeing very clearly exactly how that's
working.
Robert: Then, the one uncle, the peacemaker, he goes,
easy, easy, easy. All right? Actually, it's easy, easy, ET. There
were three formulas there. The first one there is, EZ, all this
please and quit it is over now. Over now. Hopefully you're
seeing that.
And the second one, he's saying, EZ again. Please take out
your bowl. And then I think I wrote the formula wrong to you.
I rechecked. The third one isn't easy, it's ET. So it's ET, take
out your soup, or your spoon now. So there was a bowl and a
spoon. So he's basically saying it's time to eat. So saying it
again, the first easy is all the please and quit it is over now.
The second easy is, take out your bowl. The third one is ET,
take out your spoon and that's all over now. The second too I
know are square root of now. I see it though, that it's over
now. Are you…kudos to you that you're able to follow along
this crazy narrative.
Anthony: I follow it exactly even though I don't know these
symbols and I don't know exactly what that shape of the
bowl represents.
Robert: Sigma. Standard deviation, but I needed a symbol
like a bowl. You did something with garden shears last time
we spoke. And I took a queue from that. I was like, okay, just
some kind of symbol while we're eating and we were at a
table. So just it makes sense that a bowl and a spoon is
there.
Anthony: Yeah. Well that's exactly the sort of thing that you
want to be doing, which is substituting, associating and
really applying these techniques. And the other thing that's
really great that you're doing is you're making a context for
it. It's not like a bowl and then Sandra Bullock, but it's a bowl
and a spoon.
Robert: Right. Right. Right.
Anthony: And although on the paper I'm looking at,
although you have EZ, you mentioned that it's actually ET.
And in my mind the first thing I'm thinking of is the dinner
scene in the movie ET. Right? I don't recall exactly that
there's a bowl and a spoon, but there's something where
they're in the dining room with him or even a restaurant I
think, at one point. So even my mind as I'm listening begins
to work on this and who knows if I'll ever see this calculation
again or this formula again, but I may have some recall of
something.
Robert: Sure. Exactly. You know that formula and what it – it
can be easily translated to you for you to create your own
process and I get that. I get that. So it gets really good now
for the last three formulas that I memorized, okay?
Anthony: But just before we move ahead, can I ask a
question?
Robert: Yeah. Sure.
Anthony: Confidence intervals, you have at the top. Is that
just something you don't need to memorize because you
know it through familiarity?
Robert: I do. I did. I had that as part of the story. The part of
the story was I was trying to work on the narrative, but I
stumbled with the act of my gaining my confidence though
because it's – you have to know the vocabulary of it. And so
at this point I would say creating a different Memory Palace
for the vocabulary. Like what is a binomial distribution? What
is a poison [ph] distribution? What is a confidence interval?
Those types of things. I think you have to know what those
are in addition to this, or in tandem with this or I think it's
possible if you get good at this to weave confidence interval
into this current Memory Palace as well. I'm saying the
definition of what it is. You know. It's a lot because you have
to know the definition and then you'll be able to do the
calculations with the definition.
So I think knowing the definition is probably more important,
but it's easier to remember the definition than these
formulas. I'm saying it both as someone who teaches it and
someone that is trying to learn these formulas. Formulas are
a beast. They're so cryptic whereas if you could explain, like
you said in our last conversation, being able to explain
something that's very challenging in a single sentence. And
from the sentence you create an image and then from the
image you create your Memory Palace. So it's a different
beast to memorize the definition. What do you think about
that?
Anthony: Well I think that with greater experience, you may
be able to incorporate that as you continue developing.
However, that said, I think there's a relationship here
between vocabulary and grammar when using Memory
Palaces for learning a language. So for example, there are a
lot of vocabulary rules that apply to words that look
differently in different situations. So one of the questions I
always get is do you memorize all of the different
permutations of a word with itself or what do you do? And I
suggest a separate Memory Palace for the rules in many
cases. I mean, grammar is incredibly complex and it's not
really something that I've done a whole lot of work on yet.
Nonetheless, there is a benefit to having Memory Palaces or
a cheat sheet for grammar rules in a Memory Palace and
being able to cross-index them, so to speak. So you have
specific instances, like let's say that a word is a formula that
has a definition and you can memorize sort of the sound and
the meaning of the word at the same time, but it needs to be
cross-indexed or so with a grammatical rule in some cases.
So if you're able to sort of jump from one Memory Palace to
the other, it's almost like Tesla rays or something like that.
Robert: Everyone's fantasy to teletransport. I've always
wanted to do that.
Anthony: But in terms of gender for certain words, you can
just incorporate certain symbols. One of the examples that I
give that I've used a lot is a boxer or boxing gloves is always
somehow incorporated into an image with a masculine
gender, or a skirt with a feminine gender or fire as part of
neutral. But definitely, I think that, that is a very interesting
issue that people need to explore on their own and come up
with solutions once they know the method. But it sounds as
though the real beast, as I think you put it, is the formulas
themselves. And you've cracked the code as we've seen
from the two of these things. So really the English definition
is probably easy peasy next to this.
Robert: It would be easier. It would be easier next to this
because it's a conceptual thing. You can explain, and I've
explained that numerous times to students that confidence
interval is like the interval at which you believe the true
population lies. It's like if you do a survey and you say that
80% of people believe in climate change in my survey and
then you do some interval somewhere between 80% give or
take 2% is the true population percentage that believes in
climate change. It's like – that's – once you understand the
definition, then the beast is this thing. And I would need to
cross-index. I believe in that. I would need to cross-index.
Okay.
Anthony: Are these all the confidence intervals or just the
ones you selected for this particular exercise?
Robert: These are pretty much – there are three general
confidence intervals. One for P, which is a percentage. One
for X bar, you see that is for means, for average. And one for
standard deviation, the bowl, the sigma. There are three of
them there. Basically you do a sample study and then you
ask yourself to what degree does my sample apply to the
population at large. That's basically what a confidence
interval is. And these are pretty much those three, at least
with the introductory statistic studies, those three.
Anthony: Okay. Do you want to do some more?
Robert: Sure. I could do some more. I'll do these last three
ones and then I wanted to share with you a little brief story
about how, unbeknownst to me, I was doing your methods
without even realizing it. And before we had even met, I
wanted to tell you. The kids love it. It's one of the best videos
that people like. So I'll end with that one. But basically, after
all this stuff [you've already heard], I'm not really hungry –
all this yelling back and forth. Take out your bowl. Take out
your spoon. It sounded very sort of like dictating to me. So
when I was a kid to blow off steam, I would play Nintendo.
And one of my games on Nintendo was Ninja Guiden and it
was a Ninja game.
Anthony: I remember that one.
Robert: You remember Ninja Guiden? And so, I just remember
because what prompted me was. It's called ki square. It looks
like a throwing star. So that's just how I – that was my in, the
throwing star. So it goes like this. Now, one sword. So it's like
the minus sign here. Here's the minus sign and the sword,
you know, is like this. Now, one sword. And the opponent
says, two swords. And then there are two throwing stars. So
now one sword, two swords, "s squared" and that's over two
throwing stars. And that's twice around the bowl. I don't
know why it's around the bowl. It's probably because I didn't
want the bowl and I wanted to go play Nintendo. I just made
that one up. I just did that one on the fly, but it works.
After I play the game, I'm hungry again. I'm hungry again, so
I go back to the kitchen and they present the food. Now,
here. See, that's N equals. Now here is the equals. All right.
So here we go, more of my past. My parents were born in
Iran so I grew up with a whole array of Iranian cuisine. And
I'm going to tell you what one of those dishes was, it was call
Zettesh Polo [ph]. It's sort of a raisin rice. Okay. So I have
zettesh polo. Two servings of the zettesh. That's Z squared.
So zettesh polo with quince. That was another thing it was
served with. And that's poured all over two eggplants.
Are you following me with the formula where it says it [refers
to formulas written on the form]? And then the second dish
was one serving of zettesh and then the bowl is back, so you
pour it in the bowl and that's over one serving of eggplant.
But I'm hungry, so I want that twice. That's the squaring. So
again, now, picturing I took a flight over to Germany and I
was hanging out with you and we were having the beers. I
would have no problem explaining to you that I grew up in an
Iranian household with Iranian cuisine and Zettesh Polo was
one of them. Zettesh Polo is raisins with rice and quince and
that eggplant would've been on the table too. I would have
no problem explaining that to you, but had it been for this
opportunity I never would've gone there, probably. I would've
talked about relevant stuff. So that's what I'm saying.
Anthony: Do you have any alternative ideas that you could
use to also memorize this stuff that comes to mind?
Robert: Alternative ideas? How do you mean?
Anthony: You've gone to this particular dish and how it was
involved in your culture and so forth. But, if you were
pressed to come up with different set of information, do you
think that you could have an alternative mnemonic
associative imagery?
Robert: Sure. I mean isn't the list infinite?
Anthony: It could well be. But I'm just curious because as
we're saying, everyone has their own take, but a lot of
people will wonder, what if I don't have anything? So I'm just
trying to think…
Robert: So what if I don't have anything? Well I mean, you
have to – okay, look, as someone that's new to this, I think
my, it was finding where I reside within the palace. What are
the images associated? What are the actions? That to me
was the challenge. And I would be sort of lost in thought
thinking about that. The second I come up with an applicable
narrative, an applicable Memory Palace, then I would be able
to do it. And I'm saying I'm not – it didn't take that long, but
it was definitely a lot of effort. I was sitting here this
morning. I was thinking, where am I? What am I doing?
Who's around? What are they saying? What do I smell? How
do I feel? What's the temperature in the room? These are the
things that – and so it's not an easy process, by any means.
But, once you're there, it starts to hit. It's sort of like it comes
in waves.
But, I wouldn't, without wasting your time, be able to come
up with another palace on the spot or something that would
make sense to me, like I could go to [audio gap] quail. ZPQ
would be zebras and pigs and quail, but they don't really
have any particular personal meaning to me, but I would
have no problem. And then elephants on the bottom. I
wouldn't have a problem remembering it, you know like you
said, you call it the training wheels. You use them to usher in
the memory into your head and then once it's in there, then
you can take off the training wheels. You don't necessarily
need to remember zebras and pigs and quails and elephants,
but maybe the fact that I've said it three times will make me
take off the training wheels.
Anthony: Right. Right. Right. Well, just for the benefit of
people watching this, I think that one of the things to be said
is, if you're not able to have Z squared with P and Q,
associated with something so convenient as a dish, which I
actually want to say something about that in a second, but if
you didn't have that, you could for instance you gave the
example of a zebra, a pig and a quail. Well, you could have
the zebra swinging some sort of an appropriate weapon at
the pig who is then being attacked by the quail at the same
time, or somehow get all these images in there. But the point
is, without a personal association, the technique is to
exaggerate the violence or exaggerate the action or to make
everything big and vibrant and colorful and just zooming
with action so that you're creating this rubberneck effect if
you're not able to bring anything personal to it. So I think
that is a clue for people who are just like, well I don't have
any exotic dish that sounds just like that.
But what I do want to say about that is that one of the most
amazing things that I've noticed both in myself and others
when they start to get into this stuff, I don't have any data
on the unconscious mind for this, but it seems as if the
unconscious mind seems to arrange things conveniently. And
that there seems to be just an absolute overflow of
coincidental opportunity to link things.
Again, I don't know how to account for that, or test it
scientifically, but it's my impression. It's my impression on a
personal level, anecdotal level and an anecdotal level from
other people. And it almost feels as if there's sort of a
reverse undertow or something like that where the mind
prepares things in advance and is just ready there for you as
if it knows. Again, I don't want to get into woo woo or
pseudoscience or bizarre things, but that's the feeling that I
have. And it's just almost too convenient at some points. And
I don't know if that's something that people can cultivate or
not, but it is something to think about and focus on allowing
to happen.
And that's one of the sort of things that you describe. Well,
what am I going to do? Where am I? What's the
temperature? Who's here? That's a process of allowing
something to happen. And when you kind of just get out of
the way, it starts to come and you get this kind of effect that
I'm talking about, convenience, convenient imagery just sort
of popping up. So I'm curious, did you do anything to relax
yourself, which is one of the key things I teach in order to
enable this kind of flooding up of imagery?
Robert: I did. Again, as a teacher myself, I believe in
creating space to learn. And so, I cleared the morning. I had
a good breakfast. I slept well. And so once I sat down, I was
fully focused and without other sort of stresses of the mind
or in my life in the way. I do that as a learning practice
automatically. So I'm glad that you make that goal explicit.
That's a very, very good explicit goal that you have.
Can I just comment about your claim about the subconscious
mind, the unconscious mind? I think it's so interesting and a
very interesting claim and makes a lot of sense and my
reason as to why, my guess is that we're always in survival
mode and it seems like the brain's role in survival is to create
predictability, to create order. So it would make sense that it
would do that subconsciously in the face of all of this chaos,
that it's just ready to go to put things into buckets so that we
could have some level of predictability and predictability
leads to survival. So I think that that's a very, very plausible
claim and one that I'm going to think about a long time after
our conversation.
Anthony: There's certainly a lot of related research into the
unconscious that they've done through certain tests and so
forth that relate to this that definitely can be investigated,
something to get into at a certain point. One of the other
things that I wanted to ask you about is that, it sounds as if
you've managed to do all of this, which is actually pretty
substantial, in one room. Is that the case?
Robert: Yeah. I did it in one room.
Anthony: And do you feel that you could go to, say, the
confidence intervals information without having to first visit
the binomial probability distribution information? Or do you
need to start at the beginning?
Robert: Now maybe I could start at any room, but at the
beginning, I needed the full tour. I needed to go into the
house. I needed to see the dining table first. I needed to go
into the family room and play Nintendo and then I needed to
go into the kitchen for the dishes. So I think early on, I
needed to go from room to room and now, especially with
this coaching that you're giving me, I can start in one room.
Anthony: Now, what is your, assuming all of this material –
you were able to retain it after spending really what sounds
like a pretty insubstantial amount of time this morning…
Robert: Yeah, this morning.
Anthony: … What I want to ask, even though you're not
actually going to do this, if you had to produce this
information on a test, say next week, and assuming that you
maintained your recall through rehearsing it several times
between now and then to make sure that it sticks and to re-
amplify it, what is that test situation going to look like? What
do you expect to see on the exam? And how do you predict
that you would use these constructions that you've built
inside of a memory palace in order to assist you in passing
that exam and being successful?
Robert: Right. That's a good question because many times I
think the important part of an exam is not only to know the
formula but to know when it applies, on which problem to
use it and in which problem to apply it. It's sort of like
knowing when to use a screwdriver or a wrench or a
hammer. It's the same idea. You have to know when to use
which tool.
And so what I would do, is that just given like if I'm trying to
embody what it's like for a student to take a test with the
pressure and all that stuff and the fear of not remembering I
would suggest coming into the exam and just going through
my memory palace, going through that process and writing
down all of the formulas at the top of the page, just getting
all of them down. Getting all of them down would be really
important. At least that takes the pressure off from having to
recall it at any specific moment.
From there, knowing when to apply which formula to which
problem is exactly what you're saying about the cross-
indexing because you would need to look for key words
within the problems. The problems would say, for example,
what is the confidence interval estimate if my sample size if
40 people and my margin of error is 2%?
You know they would give you that N. They would give you
the E. They would give you the P. They would give you the Q.
and they would give you all those things, but being able to
cross-index, knowing to use that confidence interval formula
for that problem would be an entirely – I feel like a different
Memory Palace that you need to teletransport to, unless you
embed it with in.
Like I said, as I get more advanced, what I'm trying to do, is
I'm trying to model what it's like for someone that's going
into your methods with fresh eyes and help your viewers
figure out this process as someone that's doing this basically
from square one. And so yeah, I think as of now I would need
to do the cross-index method where you have a different set
of rules and a different narrative, different palace, different
images, different actions that would be able to reference the
narrative of the formulas themselves. As of now, I have not
been able to create an expanded version that includes all of
them.
Anthony: How long do you think just knowing where you're
at now and not knowing how fast you could get and how
accurate you could get, knowing what you know about
standard exams in this area, how much time do you think
you would need to invest in sufficiently memorizing and then
rehearsing the material so that you were confident that you
had it available as a crib sheet in your mind in order to be
successful in a standard exam, an exam of consequence that
would make a difference in a student's life to be able to pass
it?
Robert: Right. Right. Right. How long? Well I guess that's
relative. I think I would say I would tell you that being
vaguely familiar with these formulas before, I know that
they're – for example I know that there are confidence
interval formulas. In fact, I know that there are three
confidence interval formulas. I knew that going in, but I
didn't know what they were except by just looking. I'd have
to look at the papers. It took me 35 or 40 minutes to
remember nine formulas. And then with that, I think you can
say double that time to get the concepts as well as like what
a confidence interval is, what a binomial distribution is, what
they're used for and those types of things, which are,
honestly, more important than the formulas themselves. You
have to be able to define what you're talking about before
you take out the tool from the toolbox.
But, I'm telling you 35, 40 minutes for nine formulas is very
efficient. And it's not going anywhere especially if now I have
the narrative. I can take it with me everywhere. I don't have
to consult notes all the time. I don't have to write down again
and again. That was my method before, was to write the
formula. I said to myself, well, if I don't have the formula
memorized, let's see how I feel about that after writing it five
times. And then I'll reevaluate whether I've memorized it. So
I'd write it down five times. So in answering your question,
it's not only a matter of time that's beneficial, but it's the
process. It's the process. It's not lame. It's not a waste of
time. It's not a drag. It's not a drag on your consciousness.
It's more of like a, Where am I? Where am I? It's
introspective, which I like. I like that a lot as weird as it was
at first.
Anthony: Do you think that there are any students that this
method would either not appeal to or just be outright wrong
for?
Robert: Yes, I do. I come across a lot of students. I think
anyone – and this is not a judgment or any lack of respect for
any students or any type of student out there. I think what's
happening in education today is that some people really
more and more are demanding a spoon feeding system, in
which you just say, this is what it is. This is what you need to
memorize. Here is what they are. And then they'll go through
the process of just trying to pound it into their brain and then
once it's done, in survival mode, they'll forget about it and
move on. Any student that insists on the results only, that
insists on not really focusing on process, that insists on doing
it one way that has worked before and not ready to question
or adopt new methodologies, this isn't for them. This isn't for
them because it seems like you're sort of walking backwards.
You could be spending time working on formulas. You could
be spending time making flash cards. You could be spending
time doing that stuff that has worked and served you in the
past. Why would I want to think about going back in my past
and talking to my family at the dining table and doing like
this? Napkins, No No No (makes X symbols with his arms).
It's very different. And so if you're not ready to step outside
your comfort zone and sort of confront a new method that
you've never even considered before, then yes, it's better to
stick to the flash cards. Or I think you, of all people would not
mandate your method to anyone that had sort of a tangible
amount of trepidation going in. Like, I don't know, Memory
Palace? … not really for me. You wouldn't want to force it on
them. They have to be ready to do the work and go into their
mind. Does that make sense?
Anthony: It's certainly voluntary. It's got to be voluntary.
You've got to be into it. But I think that a lot of people don't
do it because actually I think that the term Memory Palace
turns a lot of people off. I think it's an incredibly sexy term…
Robert: I do too.
Anthony: … but I heard from one guy who said that he
couldn't even get started because he disliked the term so
much. And he told me – this was an 80-year-old man – he
told me that he finally came up with "apartments with
compartments." That was his preferred term. I just said, hey
man, whatever works. Go with it. Call them "red chickens in
a field." Whatever you want. Just get over the hump of what
it's called and get over the fact that – it's not that it's just
one step back to go into your mind and start doing all this
sort of work, but it's really two or three steps back because
you need to learn the technique in the first place.
Robert: Absolutely.
Anthony: But it's kind of like being a bit of a person who
gets invited to the cockpit. You see all the instrument dials
and the plane is already flying. I remember when I was a kid,
we were going to Disneyland and this was way back before
people were flying planes into buildings and the pilot, or the
stewardess came out and said, hey, do you want to come
see the cockpit? And I was like, sure! I was like nine years
old. And I went up to the front. I was able to actually see the
two guys sitting there and everything out in the sky and I
just got the sense of wonder of this extremely – it seems
extremely complicated.
So at first encountering this it's kind of like visiting the
cockpit and you see and you'll say I'll never be a pilot. I'll
never know how to do all this stuff. It's just overwhelming.
But then, let's just say, you decide to give it a try and before
you ever get that plane into the sky, there's a bit of training
that's involved. You've got to understand this. You've got to
understand that. Oh, there's this principle. There's that
principle. But once you get that plane into the sky once or
twice, well every time that plane has to go to the pickup
thing, it's got to pick up the passengers and it's got to taxi to
the runway. But as soon as it gets to the runway, it goes into
the sky and it flies and it does it again and again and again.
And every time it's successful.
So that's basically what this is. So you first see the wonder.
You give it a try. You try to learn the technique and then you
learn to fly and you come back and you pick up more and
more passengers. The passengers being the memories, the
material you've memorized. And then you taxi to the runway
and then you get up in the sky. And it's not a bad metaphor
as well because eventually the plane is going to land and if
you don't keep fueling the jet, the memories are going to
fade, but you'll pick up new ones or you'll pick them up again
because the same passengers sometimes take the same
flight. So I think that's a really nice metaphor that I came up
with on the "fly" for how this all works, but you definitely
have to step back before you fly every time.
Robert: You definitely have to step back.
Anthony: But, do you think it's a worthy investment?
Something that you would gladly teach others to do?
Robert: Yeah. It's definitely a worthy investment. I think it
should be an offering because let's talk about the guy that
was uncomfortable with [the term] Memory Palace. If
someone is uncomfortable with "Memory Palace," then they
have one of two choices. They can say "apartments with
compartments" and now I'm ready to work with you, or they
can say, Memory Palace, I'm not into it and they back away.
It's all about their attitude. It's all about their attitude. How
they approach the thing. Do they use it as an opportunity to
find their own in? To give something a try, a reasonable try to
take those few steps back and learn the methodology and
move forward? Or are they going to look for some scapegoat
excuse, I don't like the word "Palace." I'm sure you're going
to have people that say – "I don't need a Palace. I'm not
royalty. I don't believe in that." And then they'll back away.
It's just an excuse to not do it. So I think what you're saying
is right, voluntary.
I believe it should be an offering. I'm going to offer it to my
students as a methodology, but at the end of the day, it has
to come from the learner because it's your journey. It's your
images. Even our conversation early on, what we were
stumbling on was for you to create your images when it
came to these formulas. And then your aha moment was so
helpful in that it was really about me creating these learning
journeys or this Memory Palace journey because this is my
craft. This is what I do for a living. This is what I try to help
people do. So I appreciate the fact that you turned it around
to the learner. I think that's the same advice that you need
to give all your learners is that it's really up to them to try it
out and see if it works for them. But they have to take those
two steps back and really learn the cockpit, you know?
Anthony: Yeah. I think we should just clarify what you're
referring to. We had met before. And the idea of this was
that you were going to teach me math or some
mathematical principles. I was going to memorize those
formulas or principles and then I was going to demonstrate
how I did it. And we sort of struggled for about an hour I
think. In terms of me thinking, first of all, what are we going
to use as an example. Me, not being a mathematician, not
having any applicable interest in math as such. I mean we
talked about conversion rates and things that have to do
with websites and so forth being interesting to me and also
I'm just interested in math as a concept, but in terms of the
sorts of things that you're presenting now with confidence
intervals, this is just ... What can I possibly bring from myself
when there's nothing at stake? There's nothing of interest
and so forth. So what we ultimately ended up deciding was
why don't you learn my method and then you apply it to
something that has consequence for you and something that
you're clearly passionate about and deeply invested in and
interested in?
And I think that really raises a point and I wouldn't want to
turn anybody away from any topic at all in education. But I
think that it does raise the point that a lot of people are into
a subject area because they have an end goal that they
aren't really in love with because they have a myth about
getting a job on the other side.
So one of the things that might prevent people from having
success with mnemonics or memory techniques or Memory
Palaces is simply that they're not in love with what they're
trying to memorize. They're doing it for some reason that is
not authentic. It's not real. It's not love and so that may be
the true barrier here because it is going to take an extra
investment. Not much. 45 minutes for nine formulas is
nothing, you know? It's really, at the end of the day, in
comparison with what you can do with that, it may be and it
has to be said, that at some level the barrier can be that
there's not enough true, authentic interest in the topic in the
first place in order to warrant just any kind of learning really.
So that may – I just wanted to throw that out there.
Robert: I see it every day. You hit it on the head there.
Absolutely. And you know what's interesting is that you
might be able to sell, as you were saying earlier today, you
might be able to sell the topic through these mnemonics as
well. And I'm going to conclude my process of Memory
Palaces and this learning technique with you with evidence
that I have actually done this subconsciously without even
knowing it and it has to do with the quadratic formula. Okay?
So look, as someone who's not in an algebra class right now
yourself. You have a respect for math as a concept, but
there's not need for you to walk around and memorize the
quadratic formula. So I get that. So when I try to teach that
formula to my students, it's just a bunch of gibberish to
them, especially at first. But I came up with the mnemonic
that they love and I'm going to share it with you and I've
been doing this for years, well before you and I had met. I've
been doing this for years and I'm going to share it with you.
It may help to have the formula in front of you. Could you
maybe write it? I could recite it to you and then you'll look at
it with me.
Anthony: Okay. I'm just getting a pen and paper here. My
fancy new Collins pen.
Robert: Fancy. Okay. So that's the quadratic formula. Okay?
So here's the mnemonic that I did. I would write it on the
board so I would say class, here's the story about the
negative boy who couldn't decide yes or no, to go to a
radical party. But the boy was a square and he missed out on
(-) 4 awesome chicks. And the party was all over at 2 a.m.
they love it. They love it. They come in the next day talking
about it. It just gave it a narrative. The story of the negative
boy who missed out on four awesome chicks. They love that
stuff. And it's just interesting that we found our way together
and I had been doing it without even realizing it.
Anthony: Well my immediate instinct would be and I think it
would help people who struggle even with that and I think it
would benefit people who don't struggle with that, using a
narrative like that is to locate that some place to actually see
that in a particular place. So if I was going to work on that, I
would see it either where I'm in the room now or I'd pick a
specific Memory Palace and locate it somewhere so that I
have a place to go when I'm looking for it and then I would
want to actually see that and make sure I spend some time
exaggerating the imagery and bringing color and action to it.
So that would just be my response to that to add more from
the kinds of techniques that I put into things.
Is there anything else that we haven't covered that you think
should be mentioned?
Robert: I've talked about everything that I wanted to
process. You've given me a lot to think about. Is there
anything else you wanted to figure out or inquire from me?
Do you need anything else from me? Or however else I can
help you with this? This has been great.
Anthony: My only thing is I hope it continues so we can help
more people actually adopt these techniques and at the very
least do things with the sort of formula that you just shared
with the negative boy and maybe experiment with people
who struggle with even that and see about adding a Memory
Palace component to it to give it for what might for some
people give it an extra oomph so to speak, or also as a kind
of gateway drug, so to speak, to more mnemonics when they
see that sort of power coming together.
Robert: Absolutely. Giving it a shell, giving it a framework as
opposed to just a simple cutie narrative because that's what
I've done up until now. They can envision themselves at the
party. They can see who's there. They can ask why or who
the four awesome chicks were. All those sort of add-ons to
help the image come to life. Anthony, this has been really,
really special for me. I think this is a huge opportunity for me
to be able to share this conversation with you and I think
you're doing really great work and I hope that whoever is
watching this and your students understand that it's from
someone that works in academics that used this method for
the first time today and learned about it only a few days ago,
it's really special and you're really on to something and I'm
just really happy to be a part of it. So thanks for this
opportunity.
Anthony: And thank you for bringing your expertise to the
practice.
Robert: You got it.
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