In this CJ Moneyway Show episode, host Corwin CJ Moneyway Johnson interviews Frank, a licensed professional counselor and author who possesses hyperthymesia—an extraordinary autobiographical memory that allows him to recall every day of his life since age six. Frank discusses how his memory shaped his education, noting both advantages in objective testing and challenges in focusing during lessons. He describes his clinical work treating depression, anxiety, addiction, bipolar disorder, and couples/family issues, and explains how his constant recollection of negative memories motivated him to develop strategies for emotional detachment. This led to his "Heal Your Memory" book series, which combines personal narratives from interviewees who have overcome trauma with meditation exercises aimed at rewiring emotional responses to past events. Frank recounts his participation in a five‑year UC Irvine study on hyperthymesia, detailing phone‑based date‑recall tests, MRI findings of enlarged frontal lobes, and hopes that the research could inform treatments for dementia and Alzheimer’s. He shares personal habits—six to seven hours of sleep, beach outings, karaoke, trivia, and reading—and outlines future plans, including more books, continued memory research, and potential direct sales from his website. Contact information is provided (www.phenomenalmemory.com and an email address). The episode also contains sponsor messages for Progressive Insurance and Indeed, but the core content centers on Frank’s memory, therapeutic philosophy, and authorial work.
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Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show podcast, the podcast show where we unlock potential one dream at a time. Today we have another guest whose journey is truly worth hearing. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Moneyway experience.
What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show, and I'm your host, CJ Moneyway. Today we have on the show a guest who has a great memory, who's also a therapist and writer. We have Frank on the show today. What's up, Frank? How you doing, man?
Hey, good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here.
Yeah, I appreciate you coming on, man. Appreciate you coming on. So, Frank, tell us a little bit about yourself, man, and about your background.
Okay, well, uh, I'm a therapist, uh, licensed professional counselor. It's, uh, very similar to a psychologist. I treat people with depression, anxiety, a little bit of addictions, couples, families. And I also, I remember every day of my life since I was 6 years old, and I just turned 64. Like, I remember the day of the week, what the weather was, and any significant news that happened, as well as personal experiences.
Wow. Yeah, that's a great memory. Yeah, that's a great memory. Remember a lot of things from 6 years old. So Frank, so how was school for you with this type of memory?
Well, objective tests where you memorize the information were very easy, but I was also fairly good at classes where you had to think through and concepts there. So I was good in school that way, but the one struggle I had in school was I have so many dates and figures and facts going through my head that sometimes it was hard to pay attention to the lesson because of all that was going on in my head. So it was kind of a mixed blessing having this for school.
So you was thinking ahead of the lesson plans, huh?
Yeah.
Oh man, that's pretty cool. So Frank, tell us a little bit about your profession as a licensed professional counselor?
Well, I, I work full-time in a facility that treats people with depression, anxiety, so some addiction issues. And I also have a private office on Mondays, and same thing, a lot of depression, anxiety, bipolar. And the way I got interested in this field was that having the memory that I do, memories from the past would constantly crop up. And it was hard because, I mean, it might seem great at first. Hey, you remember all your vacations, all the fun times with friends, dates and all. But the drawback was I'd remember everything, the negative things too, like bad days at work, social slights, things like that, with the same emotional intensity as if it were happening right now. And I thought, since I'm not going to forget any of the memories, I just need to figure out how to let go of the emotions from the bad memories. And that's what some of my books I've written are about, the, uh, Heal Your Memory series.
So Frank, as you talk about writing, so what made you decide to be a writer?
Well, I wanted to convey to the world what it was like. My first book was about how I— what it was like having a memory like mine, both the internal thinking processes as well as how people responded to it when they learned about it. So I was always good at writing in school, creativity, so, and I wanted to use that in some ways. So since 2007, I've published, uh, over 20 books.
Wow.
All available on Amazon.
20 books. So I mean, so that's all you do, huh, is write books and counsel? Like, oh, that's—
well, well, I do have time to go to the beach and have fun with friends and spend time with the wife and family. So I guess one thing is I only, I only require about 6 or 7 hours of sleep each night.
Yeah, yeah, give you a lot of time for writing, man. That's pretty cool. So, uh, Frank, tell us about this book, this one book that you just wrote, man, Heal Your Memories and Change Your Life.
What I did with that is people love to hear stories of resilience and overcoming difficulties. So what I did was for that and the other two ones in the series, I interviewed 12 to 15 people for each book and about people who'd been through things like school or workplace bullying, injuries that sidelined their careers. I interviewed a rape victim as well as people who've been through all kinds of stuff but are now happy and thriving. And the book includes that as well as some meditation exercises that the reader can do to help heal the traumatic or the emotional effects of their own past memories.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe weren't so good. Because you don't have to spend your life being weighed down by bad memories from the past.
Yeah, I agree. I agree. Yeah, we can all move on for certain things, but like you say, some people, we hover on things for a mighty long time that we probably could have got over a long time ago. So yeah, I agree with you. So, uh, Frank, tell us about being a research subject and what was that experience like?
Well, the University of California in Irvine In 2000, they started studying— well, they studied this one subject for 5 years and they started advertising for more people to come that have this kind of memory. So I went through about 4 phone tests before, like, they'd throw out a date and I'd either— and I have to say what day of the week it was and what happened on that day, or else they'd throw out a news event such as Exxon Valdez oil spill, and I'd say, yeah, Friday, March 24th, 1989. Or they'd say, what happened on January 30th, 1983? That was a Sunday, and the, uh, the then Washington Redskins, now—
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Commanders defeated the Miami Dolphins in the Super Bowl, so And after 4 tests like that, they invited me to come over. So I spent a day being asked dates and then other memory tests that they gave. And they even gave me an MRI to decide, to see if my brain's different from other people's. And they did find that I have about, like, parts of my frontal lobes are almost twice the size of the average person's.
Mm.
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Yeah. So with that, you know, with the study and with everything, did they take it and, you know, saying, did anything come out of that study, you know, as far as how they can help others or you know, what they was actually trying to do?
Well, they're thinking about a lot of things, and, you know, they're hoping to learn more about the human brain. And this hasn't happened— has not happened, but I would hope that they would maybe use mine and the others' genes to, to create a medicine for dementia and Alzheimer's. That would be really great if they could do that.
Yeah, it would be. So how old were you when you went through this process, man?
Well, I was 50 when I went there to the university, so it was back in early 2011, February 9th, Wednesday.
So that wasn't too long ago. I was probably thinking maybe when you was a kid, so that was just like 14 years ago, huh?
Yes. Well, I know they have, uh, they've tested kids ever since, but when I was a kid, they didn't have these studies, so, uh, And I would have begged mom and dad, here, take me.
Yeah, I hear you, man, I hear you. So tell us, Frank, tell us about the complications of— no, the complexity of human psychology and behavior.
Well, there's always new things to discover. In some ways it's still in its infancy, what they're finding. There's always new things coming out, such as like what causes people to act certain ways, feel certain ways. I know they— there's been studies on people who are highly sensitive and other studies on people who were high thrill seekers. And recently I read about a study, in fact, just the other day I read a blog about psychopaths, or more popularly termed sociopaths, who have no conscience and no regard for rules or anything. They found that their pleasure centers in the brain, as opposed to the average person, causes them to only consider pleasure in the moment and not delay of gratification. Like work hard or avoid doing something because it'll better in the future. So they're all about living for the moment in a not so healthy degree. Oh, okay.
So Frank, what advice would you give someone who wants to heal themselves from their past?
Well, I would definitely advise reading my books on the Heal Your Memory series, and additionally there's The Ultimate Guide to Healing Your Past and Empower Yourself with Your Memories. And I think it's important, you know, nowadays there have been studies on rewiring your brain. And there's exercises for that. And I think the first thing anybody needs to do is believe that it can be done.
Mm-hmm.
They have to believe that it's possible to heal your memories. You know, and to rewire your brain and get it so that when you think of the traumatic memory, you're just like, there's no feeling anymore. Just like, ah, so what, it happened. And then, and but meanwhile, keep the, keep the feeling, feel things from the good memories.
Yeah. Okay. So tell us, Frank, about your passion for mental and personal growth?
Well, I always want to help anybody that I can. I just think that a lot of our society rules and a lot of our beliefs and assumptions are really limited. It's almost like if anybody hasn't shown proficient— shown that they can do something well by about 18 to 21 years old, that's just it. They're not good at it. And, uh, I will say that some religions even deify that, like, God doesn't want you to do that because you're no good at it. God wants you to do something else. So the thing is, I don't say that everyone can be a perfect Superman or woman, but I think a lot of times people can not only achieve better mental health, but achieve more than what they were maybe programmed into believing.
Yeah, okay. So this is my last question for you, man.
Okay.
You said something about going to the beach and everything. So besides going to the beach and the things that you do, what else do you do on your free time?
Well, I like to read, and I haven't done so much of this recently, but when I had friends who were still living who like to do this, I like to go sing karaoke and play trivia. In restaurants and bars and clubs. And I think it's kind of a no-brainer why I would enjoy doing that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you probably always win it, huh? Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. So, uh, your social media handles, man, where can we reach you at? Where can we follow you at?
Okay, my website is www.phenomenalmemory.com and That's going to change pretty soon to an easier name to remember, but that's what it is for now. www.phenomenalmemory.com, all one word, lowercase dot com. And you can, for my books, you can reach me on my author page. And I'm okay with giving my email out. It's H-E-A-L-Y-S-H-E-A-L, Akeely Skeel, and then one, the number one. @msn.com.
Okay, Frank. Yeah, that's pretty cool, man. Thanks a lot. So is it anything else that you would like to share? Any future endeavors that you have going on that you would like to share with us that we can be on the lookout for?
Yes, I'm looking for writing some more books, and there's some things in the work— I mean, I can't get into details right here, but there's some things in the works for, uh, more memory research to So, and I'll be writing more books online, so people check my Amazon page and follow me on Amazon. And, uh, there may be a time in the near future I might start selling books right from my website. That's in the works too. So, so there's a lot that's going to be going on too.
Okay, well, I appreciate you coming on today, man, and talking about your past and the things that you do about memory and things of that nature, man. So I really appreciate it. Hey, you have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show with my man Frank talking about The Brain. Go out there, pick up his books on Amazon. He got 20 of them out there, man, so you got a lot to choose from. We out of here. Peace.
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You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy, just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. With Indeed Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. Don't wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/kidsandfamily. Just go to indeed.com/kidsandfamily right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring? Indeed is all you need.
