 Everyone knows this feeling of forgetting names. So if you just ask that shows your interest and that creates interest in the other, in your counterpart. So asking, using it, and making yourself aware, I want to memorize some names today is all the basic stuff you already need. And that's a really, really good start already. What's up everybody and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week and we want to make sure that you guys get notified. And in order to do that, you're going to have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. Imagine yourself walking down the street, you've got a smell in your nose and you're suddenly time traveling. Yeah, that's the right description, I like that. And it happens to all of us. And I think this defines our personality today because everything what happened to us in the past defines what who we are today. And these are short glims into the past with just the smell, just the tone, just a song in the radio or something. And yeah, that's totally a nice description here. And for you and your journey of becoming world champion in memory sports, let's talk a little bit about what the practice leading up to these competitions is like and how grueling that training is. I mean, to go from 10 minutes to seconds to memorize an entire deck of cards, I'm sure there's a lot of practice that goes into that that many of us mere amateurs or mortals are not engaging in. Yeah, I mean, the first important thing is you have to believe that it works. Because if you just think, okay, I tried it but I don't think it worked, it will not work. But it's really something you have to believe these techniques work and then go for it and try it. Give it a chance. And what I did was I was really sitting down each and every day for two or three hours in the beginning and just did my regular memory workout. Like you would go to the park or jogging and running. I would sit down on a nice sunny Sunday afternoon and memorize a list of 1,000 digits. I mean, it's always a bit difficult to sit there and do that, but you need to force yourself to do it because only with practice and regular practice and discipline you can improve here. So I was sitting there for like a year or two in the beginning every day for one or two or three hours. And that improved me in the beginning here. And do you find that as you train in this area of memorizing digits that it's helped you in your non-athlete role in terms of remembering stories, remembering things shared in conversations that others around you are pleasantly surprised by? Because I think for many of us, we're walking around with not so great memory and we're so focused on ourselves. So to be communicated in conversation with someone who has a fantastic memory, I think takes a lot of people by surprise. Yeah, but it's also difficult for me because it's very hard if you, I mean, I'm just a normal person and if I'm giving a speech and there are 100 people and after one year or two years, someone approaches me and says, hey, I met you in that speech and I told you my name. And then I say, I'm sorry, I forgot it. I meet so many people and they say, but you are the world memory champion, aren't you? And I say, yeah, but I cannot memorize everything. And I'm also just an ordinary person. But of course it helps me with in many areas of my life, giving speeches or just having a nice party trick with memorizing numbers, memorizing maybe if you're going to a bar and you try to get a telephone number, then you just memorize it, right? So people would be surprised how good that works if you try to memorize like five phone numbers at once. They would just give it to you because they think you wouldn't remember it anyway. And then you have it five numbers or you just get a credit card from someone else. I'd never did that too. So don't bring me to jail here, but I could memorize the figures on the credit card and also security number. So please don't give me your credit card if you need me and I don't want to be in that situation. So in a situation where maybe a client of yours or you in particular want to go to a party and actually remember everyone's name. So we talk a lot about this on the show. Your name is magical to you. And if someone remembers it, it really makes you feel good and it makes you stand out. But many of us as we talked about earlier in conversation, maybe we haven't fully caught the name or if we did, we weren't really focused on memorizing it. So what are the simple strategies that our listeners can use if they're going into a situation where they really want to retain people's names? Yeah, the first thing is enable your names focus. That's the first thing you have to do. So you're going to a party and you think, okay, today I want to memorize or I just want to remember some names. If you do that, you are more aware of the situation already. You don't need anything else in the beginning. And then the simple strategy is using that name. Hi, Johnny, nice to meet you. Hi AJ, nice sunglasses or whatever. And using that name in the first place already helps your memory to recall it later. And if, and that's always, yeah, very often the point, if you didn't understand the name correctly, then just don't be shy. Ask again, just ask. So sorry, I didn't get it. Please, can you repeat your name? I mean, that's not nothing bad. Everyone knows this feeling of forgetting names. So if you just ask that shows your interest and that creates interest in the other in your counterpart. So asking, using it and making yourself where I want to memorize some names today is all the basic stuff you already need. And that's a really, really good start already. We drop great content each and every week and we want to make sure that you guys get notified. And in order to do that, you're going to have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. Is there anything that you've noticed comparatively to the younger participants, comparatively to the older participants? Is it a young man's game or is it something with more experience, more training that will end up in your favor? I mean, this is a really good question. So I think you are referring to my age here. Not sure about that, but I'm already, I turned 40 recently. So, and I was like, okay, I'm already 40. And in the top 20 of the world ranking, I'm the second oldest already. And that, yeah, that affects me somehow. And I'm thinking about all these young guys here from Mongolia, for example, or from Italy, one guy who is 21 right now, the young Mongolians, 20 years old, 19 years old and they catching up so fast. And it's quite tough to stand that and to still be motivated to compete because they are overtaking me here. They're surpassing me here and there and you need to stay motivated. But I think I still didn't lose anything, but maybe I'm not improving that fast anymore. And that's the difference. The younger people are improving very, very fast. And I think I need to invest more time to get to the same level. Yeah, but it's still motivating to be able to compete with these guys. Yeah, I would imagine so. And I'm also curious, have you done any research into some of these? Well, for instance, there's, when people who have been confined to prison or work camps or POWs, there are these stories that come out of how they use their time. And for a lot of these folks, for instance, there was one story of a gentleman who built a house in his mind. And he imagined every nook and cranny of this house that he had built in his time. And I believe he was in a Japanese POW camp. Only to be, after being released, had built the house that he had put together in his mind. And so you hear these stories and you hear about people who are able to reconstruct their lives because all they have is time on their hands. Is there anything in your work or research that may be able to help explain some of these things? Yes, I think for example, people in a hospital laying down at the bed and they cannot move anymore. So what they have left is their memory, of course. And if they haven't left, some people don't. But I think all these, I don't have specific scientific insights to that, but my personal opinion is that as I mentioned before, memory is what defines us because the whole construct in our head is just based on our memories. And when you always try to remember the bad things, then you begin to feel bad maybe. So it's how you treat your memories. It's how grateful are you for your memories, for example. And I think, yeah, memory is somehow everything, isn't it? Without your memory, you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be AJ and Johnny. Well, even in our classes, we help our clients rewrite their story. They're the events that happen to them to make sure that what they're gaining from those past experiences or lessons are things that will make them better people or will be things that they can use to help them moving forwards, rather than dwelling on the pain or the situation to put them in or the type of person they assume to be because of a certain event. Yeah, right, so then when I was younger, I had a lot of depressions because of my disease and everything, yeah, about specific events in the past. And then I got help from my psychologist and actually it's a psychology strategy to try to rephrase things. So imagine yourself in a situation and you imagine, okay, that is how it went back then and then you start, okay, how could it have been? And so you get back to that point and you imagine, okay, if I would be in this situation today, how would I handle that? And yeah, you can program yourself. You are the programmer of your brain and what you think of every and each day that will happen to you. So it's hard to understand and it's hard to be aware of that every day, but if you are, you are one step forward. I mean, everyone has bad thoughts and bad feelings and that's okay, it's okay to have that but being aware of it is very important and yeah, you can program your life by programming your brain.