Try THIS 500-Year-Old Technique to Remember Everything 🧠

Mr. Kwik learning himself. What are, what are some tips that you have that you can show us in real time here with Jared so we can figure out how this learning works?

Yeah, I'm in the hot seat. I don't know what's going to happen here. We did not prepare in advance.

Like, I didn't— I haven't seen like 3 chairs up here, so this is very cool.

Yeah.

Yes, new to us as well. Okay, so I think a lot of people who are watching this want to— what they'll say is they want to improve their memory, you know, and they're looking for some quick brain hacks, something they could do, apply towards their studies. something they can apply towards work or just everyday kind of thing. And I mentioned it briefly in one of our episodes, this 2,500-year-old technique, which I know you're familiar with. It's this loci memory, basically saying that we tend to store information in our location.

Mm.

And that's— and because the reason why is because when we were hunter-gatherers, we didn't need to memorize maybe numbers and definitions, stuff like that. What we needed to remember where things were. for our own survival, right? And so it's like we need to know where the clean water was, where the good food is, the soil, enemy tribes, and that was really everything. And so we learned to store information in our environment. In fact, when you forget someone's name, what's the first question you ask yourself? You're like, where do I know this person? Where did I meet this person?

Right.

Because the context gives you a lot of the content. And I really do believe that if content is king, then context is the kingdom, right? And so the place really gives you the information. And so we learned to be able to store information around us in places. And so the idea behind this is take a place that you're very familiar with and store information that you need to remember as a filing system around your environment. Probably the one that most people are most familiar with is like their home, right? Because they could imagine themselves in the kitchen. They could see all this stuff. And then what you're doing is you're creating landmarks saying, OK, the microwave is The first place. The stove is the second place. The refrigerator is the third place. The dishwasher is the fourth place, and maybe the sink is the fifth place. But the trick is, though, is turning the information you wanna learn into a picture, because we tend to think in pictures, 'cause we're very visual, right? Even when you're traveling, it doesn't no longer— and I know you've been on the road for the past couple weeks, right? It doesn't say on the airplane, fasten your seatbelt, or no smoking. What do you see? A sign.

You see like icons.

Right, those icons, right? Because we think in icons, we think in symbols, we think in pictures, because a picture is worth a thousand words no matter what language people are in. And so sometimes we talk more quickly when we're in that visual mode because, you know, you have to keep up with all the pictures. And you can tell how fast someone thinks by how fast they're speaking also as well. Anyway, so you're taking the information you need to learn and you're putting it— the first bit in the first place, the second bit in the second place, the third bit in the third place. And if you've ever found yourself saying that, like you're arguing with someone, saying, in the first place this, in the second place that, in the third place— that languaging came from that technique. That technique is 2,500 years old, but the languaging is still here, right? Because that's how people used to remember large bits of information. And so what we're gonna do is, just for practice for people at home, is we'll take another place that we're all familiar with, because we all live in different homes. is your body, right? You can create— your body, use it as a location. And we can store information we want to remember on our body. And I had a student— this is great. I love working with children, because children, if they can learn how to learn earlier, learn how to think, learn how to focus, learn how to read faster, learn how to remember more, they have such an advantage, right? And so this child, he was struggling in school, and he would work, work, work. And I was helping his parents out with something, and they asked me to come in. during dinnertime, and I just showed him a few things on this exact technique. And the next exam he took, he took— he got an A on it, which is extraordinary. And his parents were like, how'd you do it? This is amazing. And he was like, I cheated. He was like, I did what Jim said. I cheated. And I was like, whoa, wait, wait, wait. I didn't say anything about cheating on your test. And, you know, he's a little boy, and he's like, yeah, I had all my notes with me. And I'm like, whoa. I'm like, explain to your parents how you had your notes. He was like, no, it's not out on the outside.

The notes were on the inside.

Wow.

And he was storing the things that he needed to remember on his body and in his home, in his bedroom. And so a simple example we could do is, is take 10 places on our body. And these are the 10 places that I like to use because I think we have this kinesthetic intelligence. And so we could do it together. Just, we're gonna name 10 places, and I encourage people who are watching at home to do this with me. This is something you could use to memorize a speech without notes, you know, when you're public speaking. Sometimes you don't need to remember things verbatim. With actors, they need to remember things like word for word for word, but sometimes you just need to know, oh, what are the 6 points I need to go through? But what's important is the order of it, because sometimes as a speaker, you know this, somebody interrupts you and asks a question, and then you get sidetracked, and you're like, oh, where'd I leave off? And you try to remember where that is. So the seek syntax is very important. So what we're gonna do is 10 places in our body. The first place is the top of our head. So number 1 is top. So just kind of touch the top of your head. This is gonna be kind of— It's gonna be hard. Number 1 is top. We got it. Number 2 is nose.

Nose.

3 is your mouth.

Mouth.

And 4 are your ears.

Ears.

There you go. 5 is your larynx, like your throat area. So that's 1 through 5. 6 is your shoulders.

Okay. Shoulders.

7 is your collar.

Collar.

8 are your fingers. 9 is your belly.

Belly.

And 10 is your seat, like your rear end. All right, so we're gonna go through it really fast one more time. 1 is your top.

Top.

2 is your nose.

Nose.

3 is your mouth.

Mouth.

And 4 are your ears.

Ears.

Good. 5 is your larynx.

Larynx.

6 is shoulders.

Shoulders.

7 is your collar.

Collar.

8 are your fingers.

Fingers.

9 is your belly, and then 10 is your, your seat. So we have 10 places on your body. So here's a trick, right? This is the brain hack. Since we tend to remember things in different locations, these become filing systems. It's just like if you were, um, You're going to a party and there's like these hooks or these pegs outside of the living room. You hang up your coat. You know when you leave where your coat is. You just go to where the filing system is, right? So these are filing systems on your body. So let's say we need to memorize something very simple. Let's say we're gonna do Impact Theory barbecue. It's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be a big meetup with fans and guests. And Tom calls you up and says, hey, can you stop by? Can you stop by the grocery store and pick up these 10 things? And maybe you're in a place where you can't write them down, like maybe you're driving or you're in the shower, and I don't know why you would answer the phone in the shower, but he's like rattles off these 10 things. So what you're gonna do with these 10 things instead of— now most people in our traditional school system, it's rote memory, right? It's repetition, and that's how people memorize things there. There was no creativity, there was no imagination, it was just hard push it into your head. Oh, I gotta get avocados and just repeat it 50 times. And so everything that I'm talking But even like showing, going through this grocery list, right? So, people are just joining us, we're— I'm gonna give a tip on how to, how to remember facts and give a speech without notes, maybe even a grocery list. And so, what we did was, it's using your, your creative side, and we put 10 places on our body. And for people just tuning in really fast, number 1 is your top of your head, number 2 is your nose, and we're just going down the body. 3 is your mouth, 4 is your ears, 5 is your larynx, like your throat.

6 is your tongue.

6 are your shoulders, 7 is your collar, 8 is your fingers, 9 is your belly, and then 10 is your seat. So we have 10 places on your body, and this is a 2,500-year-old memory technique. It's so cool. It gets me so excited when I, when I started studying this. It's attributed to Simonides, and Simonides is a Greek orator, and he was giving a poetry reading, and after he was done, something really tragic happened. The building collapsed and killed everyone there. He being the sole survivor had the responsibility of coming back and helping family members identify their loved ones. Back then, it wasn't made out of sheetrock and wood. Buildings were like stone. He was able to remember who everyone was based on where they were sitting. You could do that too. I think everyone at home can remember last time they went out for dinner or a conference, they remember who's sitting around their table, because again, we store information in our environment, which is really interesting. One tangent, I would just love to kind of test this on you. If you— and people could do this if they're not like driving or operating heavy machinery. I know a lot of people listen to your show like when they're— While operating heavy machinery. Or they're on a treadmill or something like this.

Put that backhoe down for a second.

So, so like, so if you take a deep breath and just exhale, and Agent Smith, you can do this with me. I want you to think about some— and everyone at home who can do this, do this.

Eyes closed?

Eyes closed, ideally, because it helps you focus. Ideally, I want you to imagine somebody that you really like. Just imagine if their presence was here. Just point in that direction. There's no right or wrong, but depending on what kind of rhythm that you're in right now in terms of your brain, if you could get a sense of somebody that you care about, just point in that direction. Just any direction. There's no right or wrong. Just point in the direction of somebody that you have— Generally, if you get a sense of where they are, Just point in that direction. Good. Now I want you to think about somebody. Now take another breath. And now exhale. And just think about someone you necessarily don't really like very much. Not that we hate anybody, but just like somebody that—

Oh, we do, Jim.

We do. Somebody we maybe don't have really positive feelings about. Get a sense of where that person is and point in that direction. Wow. Interesting. And so what I would say is like, okay, open your eyes. Just breathe. Isn't it interesting that I asked you to imagine somebody that you like and you point in one direction, And then I ask you somebody who you don't like, you point in a different direction. Because we store— this is like our coding system. We store information in our environment, and it also is like a shortcut to teach us how to feel about things. Just one more time, just humor me this. Take a deep breath, exhale, and people do this at home. Point in the direction of something that's— point in the direction of something that's in your past. Just point in the direction. Where does the past feel like for you? When you think about past memories, point in that direction. Interesting. And now erase that. Now I want you to think about something that's gonna happen in the future. It's gonna happen in the future at some point. It's a memory. It's a future memory, if you will. You know what's gonna happen. You're gonna brush your teeth tonight, or there's a birthday party, whatever it is. Future memory. Point in that direction.

Interesting.

So open your eyes. Isn't it interesting that you, that you point in 2 separate directions? Like some people, when I ask what's in your past, they point to the left, and what's in your future, they point to the right. And I ask you what's— or some people point behind them, like the two of you did. And I said, what's your future look like? And it's somewhere else. And that's how we— that's our timeline. That's our imaginary timeline that we have. So there's this thing like this timeline therapy, where if you connected the dots between where your past is, where your future is, you could actually— you know, we talk about imagine your goals, envision your goals. What if you actually put those right in your timeline? You know what I mean? What happened in the past. What if you actually go in the past and use— not to forget about what happened in the past, but just take the angst out of it, right? And you could kind of change your associations to that. So my point in bringing this up is we store emotions and feelings and sensations and people all around us, our memories. So it's kind of— that was more of an experiential thing. So now we have our 10 places on our body. And what we're gonna do is— so Simonides realized that he could remember things based on where things were. So he came up with this technique of memorizing speeches, like the 10 points to a speech, you know, like the 10 places in his living room. So let's say you get a call saying, okay, we're gonna have an Impact Theory meetup, and everyone's gonna get together. Pick up these, please pick up these 10 things at the grocery store. Now what you're gonna do, instead of writing down or putting in your phone, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you my 10 favorite brain foods. You know, these are like what I'm, it's like the staple for my diet, because you know there's some foods out there that really wreck your brain. That make you more hyperactive, that make you distracted, it's not good for your memory, that really drain your energy. These are my top 10 favorites. They're not the most powerful brain foods, but they're up there and they taste great. What we're going to do is I'm going to name all 10. The first thing you're going to put in the first place, the second thing you're going to put in the second place, and so on.

Okay.

All right, you ready?

Yeah.

I'm going to test you afterwards. Let's do it.

That's it.

Here's the glue. What you're going to do is you're going to put it there, but you want to use exaggeration. You wanna make it humorous, because what glues it is— here's, here's the key to memory: information combined with emotion becomes a long-term memory. Information alone is not memorable because it's ordinary. And that's just— there's so much stimulus, and you know this, there's billions of stimulus coming into our senses right now. And primarily, our nervous system is there to delete information, because if it wasn't, we would just go start crazy, right?

Right.

The goal is like there's any— all this stimulus out there. And so where do we focus in on? What we're going to focus on is we're going to make it extraordinary. And so what makes it extraordinary for me is emotion. So you want to make it humorous, you make it violent or whatever. But the thing is, what do I see and what do I feel? Because you're already hearing it. So you already have the auditory component. But if you want to hit all 3 learning styles, you want to make sure like, what do I see and how does that make me feel?

Okay.

All right. The first one on the— what's your first place?

Top.

The top. And I want you to imagine avocados.

Avocados.

Avocados on the top of your head. All right. So what are you doing? Just like pretend you're like 8 years old.

I would just imagine that my head is a giant avocado.

There you go. Perfect.

Top of the head avocado.

Or maybe somebody's coming. Maybe Tom's making some like guacamole on your head.

Yeah.

Yeah. Whatever. So like whatever. And what would an 8-year-old do? And now all of a sudden it's more memorable as opposed to just repeating, okay, avocados, avocados. Alright, the second place. What's the second place on your body? It's your nose. And I want you to remember blueberries, right? Blueberries are good for the brain.

Blueberries.

I call them brain berries. So I just want you to imagine blueberries coming out of your nose, right? You're sneezing blueberries everywhere. It's really gross.

Or like a blueberry stuck in your nose.

There you go.

That's what I think about.

And here's the thing. That's the goal for things to be unforgettable. Because if that ever happened, would you ever forget that?

No.

Would you have to repeat it 100 times to memorize it?

No.

No, it happens once. If someone actually made guacamole in your head, You'd remember that 50 years from now. You'd be telling your grandchildren all about that, right? Okay, I can do that. So that's what it's about, make it intense. But that's the difference between frequency, duration, and intensity, right? You don't have to study 5 hours for it to be there. The third place is what?

Mouth.

Your mouth. I want you to imagine broccoli.

Broccoli.

Let me hear some broccoli in your teeth. But here's the thing, if you make it too ordinary, you're not gonna remember it, because we forget the ordinary. Right, we remember the extraordinary. So how do you make it— see, that's the thing with memory, it's a representation, it's a representation inside your mind, so you can make it however you want, right?

Yep.

And so broccoli—

Broccoli is just— there's just a giant bulb of broccoli in my mouth. That's all I can think about.

Perfect. You can taste it too, right?

Yeah, I know how broccoli tastes. It's not the best.

The 4th place is what?

Ears.

It's your ears, is the 4th place on your body, and I want you to remember coconut oil.

Coconut oil.

This has been in the news a little bit. Okay, this could be a little controversial, but coconut oil coming out of your ears.

Coming out of my ears?

I don't know, coconut something, or maybe you're cleaning your ears with coconut oil.

Coconut oil spewing out of my ears like in streams.

Taste it, smell it, it's kind of crazy, right? Yeah. Okay, the 5th place is your what? It's your larynx, right? And the 5th place, I want you to remember eggs. So just eggs. Okay, eggs. If that happens to be someone's diet, the eggs could be good for you. Off of your brain.

Yeah.

What's the movie where he swallows— he eats all the eggs? Was it Cool Hand Luke?

Is that what it was? Oh, really?

Yeah. Yeah, he eats all the eggs. Oh, cool, cool. So that's what I'm going to think of.

Like an egg stuck there.

Yeah.

Perfect. So 6 is your what?

Shoulders.

Your shoulders. And I want you just to imagine green leafy vegetables. Kale, spinach. Green leafy vegetables.

Okay. I'm thinking about the Jolly Green Giant for some reason.

Okay. There you go. Just because he's—

isn't he in like a vegetable shroud?

Yes, he is. So he's like hanging out on your shoulders.

Yeah.

You have like a good one, like a saint one, and like the devil one. He has the devil shroud.

I think that's what he's in. Describe it like that. It's 100% accurate, by the way.

Yes.

But nobody else says vegetable shroud.

That's right. That's right.

That's good. There's green leafy vegetables. Green leafy vegetables. Okay, perfect. 7th place is what?

The collarbone.

Collar. And I want you to remember salmon.

Okay.

Right? Certain fish is really good for memory.

That's easy because collar— the collar of a fish is like their neck, essentially.

There you go.

Right?

It's really tasty. Here's the thing. Don't make it— make sure you don't make it too logical. So what do you see? What can you see? Because that's what you're going to remember.

So wearing just a necklace of salmon collars.

Oh nice. So it would be salmon, also good are the small fish like sardines and all that stuff, 'cause you have your fish oils and everything. Alright, so that's 7. 8 is your what?

Fingers.

Your fingers. Superfood that I've started incorporating in my diet is turmeric. So turmeric is this yellow-orangey powder.

Turns everything yellow.

So just imagine turmeric on your fingers.

Like finger painting with turmeric.

Literally. And finally 9 and 10. The 9th thing, 9th place is what?

The belly.

Your belly. And I want you to remember walnuts. Just imagine walnuts on— I don't know, walnuts coming out of your belly button.

Yeah, right.

Okay, like it takes— the reason why intensity works is you don't have to repeat it. You could just see it once or feel it and you're like done. Yeah, right. And so walnuts— and notice how walnuts look like the brain. There's this thing like the signature of foods, like literally a sign, signature, sign, the sign of nature. And so like, you know when you cut into a carrot and you see like the You know, the side of it, you see the inside, you see it looks like an eye. Because it looks like the organ that it's serving, right? Same thing with walnuts, because it looks like the brain. Avocado is good for female reproductive. All this, there's this whole thing, right? It's kind of interesting how food kind of could look like what the place is helping. So imagine walnuts coming out of your belly button. And finally, the 10th place is your what?

Seat.

Your seat, and dark chocolate. I don't even need to, I don't even know, I don't even want to know what image you're picturing and stuff.

Well, that makes that easy.

Yeah.

Okay. Dark chocolate can be sugar-free or whatever, but it's good for you. It's good for your brain, right? Just endorphins put you in a good mood, which is, which is great also as well. Yep. So that's the 10. So now check this out. We haven't even gone through it. I distracted you because I went on this whole tangent for 15 minutes.

You put a lot of distractions in there. Yes.

Yeah. So now you're at, you're at the grocery store.

Okay.

Right. And we have this Impact Theory meetup. Are you doing meetups?

Yeah, we just did one in London. Sub London, and we did one here in LA, which sadly I wasn't here for, but—

That's awesome. So now you have the 10 things you need to buy for the party.

All right, don't wanna blow it.

And so now you're at the grocery store. Now as you're walking down the aisles, you're just looking up and down your body saying, what do I need to buy? Because, you know, have you ever gone to the grocery store or gone to the store, you had one thing to buy?

Yeah.

And you literally went to the mall for one thing, or the bookstore, one thing, right? And you come back with like a bag full of stuff or 2 bags of stuff. With everything but the one thing that you need to buy, right? So now, and some people write it on a list and they forget their list, or it's on their phone, their phone dies or whatever. So now you don't need your grocery list in triplicates, right? You have it with you. What's the first thing you need to buy?

Avocados.

Avocados.

Top of my head. Yeah.

And I want people like, it'd be cool if they could, people that could post like their answers down on the chat and stuff like that. People are watching.

Yeah, I want to see if they remember. I'm trying to like in my head silently see if I can get it to you before you The second is what?

The second is my nose, and those are gonna be blueberries.

Blueberries. Those are blueberries or brain berries. Number 3 is— what else do you need to buy?

The mouth, and I need to get broccoli.

Broccoli. Very good. Next?

Fourth is the ears, and that's gonna be coconut oil.

Dude, Agent Smith is like crushing this. Number 5 is what?

The larynx, and that's eggs.

Eggs. Very good. 6?

6 is— is that shoulders?

Yeah.

Okay, so leafy greens.

Yeah, you're killing it. BPP, perfect. Number 7?

7 is gonna be the collar, that's salmon.

Salmon, you got it. 8?

8 is turmeric.

Turmeric on your fingers. 9 is?

9 is walnuts on the belly and then chocolate on the seat.

Dude, let's just give him a hand. That's just like—

That was good, that was good. Respect.