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Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel, all while spending less and saving more. I'm Chris Hutchins, and I'm excited to have you on my journey to find all the hacks. Today's conversation is one I am certain you'll remember because it is all about memory.
I'm joined by Johannes Malow, who stumbled on memory sports in 2003 after watching a TV talent show and has since been crowned world memory champion twice, most recently in 2018, and has won the German memory championship four times. He's competed all over the world for the past 18 years and is currently ranked number nine in the world by the International Association of Memory.
Some of his personal records include memorizing a random list of 1,014 numbers in 15 minutes and memorizing the order of a randomly shuffled deck of cards in under 25 seconds.
In our conversation, we'll hear about the mental and physical struggles Johannes had to overcome to be a world champion. We'll learn about the techniques he uses to memorize things most of us assume are impossible. And we'll discuss how we can use these techniques for things in our personal and professional life. I am so excited for this episode. So let's jump in.
Johannes, thank you so much for being here. Chris, thank you very much for having me. And yeah, looking forward to that today and for your questions. Yeah. So, you know, I mentioned a couple of the records you hold, but I don't think most people know what a World Memory Championship even is. So I thought it might be good to start. What is it? What happens at these events? And what kinds of things have you accomplished to be crowned the champion?
Yes, so in general, a world championship is a three-day event happening somewhere in the world. And usually it's like a big exam, so a huge exam. Hundreds of people sitting down at their desks
And they will give them a sheet of paper with, for example, numbers or names or words. And then they have a specific amount of time to memorize these lists. So, for example, there's one discipline out of 10, which you mentioned is, for example, 15-minute numbers. So you have a sheet of paper with 10 minutes.
digits on it and you have 15 minutes to memorize as many as you can. And then they collect these sheets of paper and then you get a recall sheet and you have to write them down. So and that is just one discipline out of 10 for the World Championship. And it's spread over three days. For example, one discipline is one hour number. So you have to memorize for one hour as many digits as you can or one hour cards. So you have to memorize playing cards as many as you can.
within one hour and that is really exhausting. So it's unbelievably exhausting actually. So that's actually what a World Memory Championship works like 10 disciplines, names, cards, numbers and so on. And in the end, overall, you get points for each discipline and the overall champion is the one with the most points over all the disciplines. And that I became twice in 2018 and 2012.
having the most points out of these 10 disciplines in the World Championship. Is there one discipline that's kind of known within all of the competitors that is the hardest one that, you know, whoever can win this one is likely to be the champion?
Actually, I think the last one, this is called Speed Cards. This is the most exciting stuff. And you have an actual deck of cards, 52 playing cards, and it is shuffled. And then you have to memorize it as fast as you can in the correct order. All the cards, the 52 cards.
And then when you're done, you put it away and you get a second deck of cards, which is in the correct order of the cards. And then you have to put this ordered deck of cards into the order of the shuffled deck of cards, which you just memorized.
And the crucial thing here is that this is the last discipline. And if you make one mistake, like just swap two cards, for example, then you just get zero points for that deck. And that's the toughest thing because you
You can't really make a mistake, otherwise you just get zero points instead of 800 and then you lose the championship. And so the pressure is on, you need to do that right now. And everyone is watching. And yeah, you have to memorize a deck of cards maybe in 30 seconds, 25, 20 seconds. This is what we're up to today in the World of Memory competition, 20 seconds. The world record is actually 12.76 seconds for memorizing a deck of cards with 52 playing cards.
I have so many questions about how you do it, how you feel, but when you're in that final moment of competing in the last discipline, are there things you do to prepare yourself? - Yes, I try to relax. Easier said than done, but actually I try to imagine myself
being at home again being at my desk at home in a training situation so i close my eyes i imagine myself being at home at my training desk and just hearing the sound what i hear usually in my home feeling the desk and so on so like bringing me back in this relaxing situation and that
calms me down and my heart rate drops and I become more relaxed. So it's like a small meditation, you might call it like that. And this works pretty well for me. Breathe slowly in, slowly out, just for a minute, and then I am ready to go.
Yeah. Wow. So if anyone listening wants to see some of these competitions, there's lots of videos online and I highly recommend looking it up. It's really kind of exciting to watch someone memorize this deck of cards so quickly. Is this something you always knew you would do or how did you get into this, I guess, career of memory sports? My mother would say I was always into memorizing because I always beat my parents in memory playing cards when I was a child. But
of course every child is beating their parents in playing memory so I wasn't into that in any way before I finished school and when I was when I turned 22 and went to my studies then I just
came across this memory sports like you told before. I saw this talent show on the TV and someone memorized the deck of cards and the list of words. And I was like, OK, if she can do it, I can do it, too. And then I went to the Internet, did some research. So I started in my early 20s with that. And then I somehow got addicted to
doing that again and again and again because I saw myself climbing up the ladder of rankings and that was really motivating for me. So at first it was just a competition thing. And then later I started doing also memory for my studies. And then at another point I started training kids in how to learn better for school, but also doing just memory competitions.
So yeah, it's all like right now since 18 years I'm doing that. - Wow. And I know you mentioned on your website the physical issues you faced played a big role in kind of pushing you to do this. Could you talk a little bit about that journey? - Sure.
Sure. A little is not easy to take, just a little about it because it's a longer story. But I'm facing a physical muscle disease. That means that my muscles are going down. And this disease is called FSHD and it's also very well known in the US. There's a big organization about it. So I was facing that when I turned 14 already. And then it started...
with my legs. So my left leg becomes thinner and thinner and the muscles decrease there. And I was falling down to the floor and I couldn't go and play table tennis anymore. I was quite okay, good table tennis player and I couldn't do that anymore. So it was a slight start. And then I went to the hospital and they tried to find out what is it about. And then they found, okay, this is a genetic disease, which...
it affects my muscles and they will go down over time. But they couldn't say how long it will take to maybe do I have to use a wheelchair or not and so on. And then I just tried to forget about that because you are 15, 16, you try to, I don't know, you try to go to a party or get a girlfriend or whatever. But I don't just don't want to, didn't want to be too much involved into that. So I didn't do anything about it at this point because I couldn't do anything.
And then when I turned 20, 21, 22, it was a time that I had a hard time walking and it becomes more difficult. And in my 20s, I was very depressed about that because it was like aging early. It really felt like I was already 70 years old or 80 years old and everything goes down with my body. And I felt bad about it. I was depressed. My self-confidence goes down. But then there was memory sports and memory sports was...
my door into another world because that gave me the opportunity to travel the world, to meet other people who are also interested in this memory stuff, and most important, to compete against others because I was always very competitive.
But with this muscle disease, you couldn't do any competitive sport anymore. But memory sports was possible. And then I thought, okay, I can try to be the German champion. And then I won that. And then I was like, okay, maybe I can be the world champion once. And I tried my best and finished second and finished second again in the world championship. And I was depressed about that. Actually, second in the world is quite good. But I was depressed anyway.
But because I was not accepting my disease at this point, then I went to a doctor, a psychologist, and she helped me a lot. And then at some point I had to say, okay, I have to use a wheelchair. If I want to be a world champion, I have to travel there. And if I want to travel there, I cannot walk anymore. It's too tough. I fall down to this floor all the time. It's so dangerous. And then I have to decide, okay, I take a wheelchair now, go to the world championship and try to win it. And
actually, that was one of the most important steps back then to just accept it, use a wheelchair. And now the wheelchair means freedom for me. And that moment becoming the world champion in 2012 was the best moment in my life, I would say, because I went through so much trouble, 10 years of depression and being down and fighting this disease and
and fighting myself and trying to be the best in the world and failing. And then sitting there in the last discipline speed cards, sitting there and say, okay, now you have to memorize the stack in about 40 seconds. That's enough this time. Just do it. And I failed the first attempt. And then I had one attempt left. You have two attempts. And I was like, okay,
Now everything counts. Now it's this moment. Everything comes together here. And then I did it somehow. I was shaking, but I did it. And then I was a world champion. And that was really like, yeah, it was a huge emotional moment for me. Thank you for kind of opening up and sharing things that people don't often talk about. Are there things that if you look back, you think steps along the way that helped you push through the really hard parts of that journey? Yeah, when I think back, it's...
It's obviously that friends, good friends are very important. So because if you can't rely on
even if it's just one person you can rely on and you can talk to, that's very, very important in these situations. And that's one point. And the other point was taking professional help here. So going to this psychologist was very, very important for me. And sometimes you try to do it by yourself. And I tried for years. But getting help from outside was the key to survive here. Yeah. And
Do you think, obviously you said you started getting into memory without any intention of it. You saw it on TV. Do you think, you know, a gifted memory like yours is something that can be trained or and needs natural talent? Or do you think it's something that anyone can do and learn on their own? And yeah, that's a good point because people always think, oh, this is a highly gifted guy, talented. And we're always doing it like since we were a kid. It's not the same.
It's not true because I always start learning that. And of course, I think if you want to go to the top 10 in the world or you want to be the world champion, I guess there is some talent involved for that because otherwise everyone could be a world champion. But for increasing your own memory skills by using memory techniques,
That's something everyone can do and everyone can have a huge, huge boost for their own memories with these techniques. Not everyone can run 100 meters in under 10 seconds, but if you try hard, you maybe can beat 12 or 13 seconds. So that's the same about memory.
You found this thing at age 19. You weren't even thinking about really in any professional way. And then you stumbled on it and then you were world champion. Are there other things that you think you now realize maybe you'd be the best poker player in the world? And has that led you to explore new disciplines or skills that you might have and you didn't know about? Yeah, definitely. You try things. If you have this skill, these memory skills, poker...
On poker it doesn't work because you always get new cards and I mean two cards memorizing two cards should be possible for everyone. But of course I was thinking about beating blackjack, memorizing these cards, the sequence of cards that are out there and such stuff. But
I mean, I'm not rich, so it didn't work so well because casinos really take care of changing the deck of cards nowadays. So they change the deck of cards and then you don't have any advantage anymore. But on the other hand, one thing what really increased for myself, which I realized not
in the first place, but later is my creativity. Because when you train your memory, it's all about strategies and these strategies involve creating visual images, connecting stuff to each other, which is not related to each other. And doing that over and over again, it looks like that I'm, yeah, my creativity really increased a lot because I
Sometimes I feel I see connections where no one else sees the connection. And that really helps me in my business, daily life and in brainstorming sessions. So, yeah, this is really one thing what improved a lot here. That's awesome. Yeah, I want to dig into how you do that kind of exercise and practice. But before...
I thought it might be really helpful. Maybe you could walk me through an example of what it looks like to actually use a memory technique to memorize something and we can kind of explore that together. Okay, let's do that. So the most popular memory technique is the memory palace. Maybe you have heard about it. It's also in some pop culture, like Sherlock Holmes is using the memory palace technique
So the memory palace is more than 2000 years old. And this is a technique where you walk or you have a mental walk, for example, through your apartment or house. So imagine yourself standing in the front of your door. So that's the first location.
You say, okay, door is the first location and then you enter your apartment and then what comes to the left? What is there for you, Chris? What is on the left when you come into your apartment? When I walk in the door on the left is the living room.
The living room. Okay. So you enter the living room and what's there? Is there any furniture? Is it TV or a chair or what is it? There's two sofas and a coffee table. Okay. So, and the trick is to do it in a specific direction. So I enter the...
my apartment and to the left there is a wardrobe and then i pass the wardrobe and i go to the left there's my bathroom and there is the first thing is the laundry machine and then i go around the room like going clockwise through my room so that's what i do and what would happen with you if you do that so you enter your room and then what comes to the left try to go clockwise through your living room here door is number one and then what comes if you go clockwise through your living room
Yeah, if I go clockwise, there's my daughter has a little table that she has all her little books on is the first thing. Then there's a couch, then there's a fireplace. And then then it's kind of all connected in one room to the dining room. So there's a big dining room table.
And that actually connects to the kitchen. So there's an island in the kitchen with a sink and the fridge is over there and the stove. Let's start with these. So we have front door. We have the little table with the books. We have the sofa. We have the fireplace. And we have the dining table. Okay. Five. So I already can imagine your house very well. But that's also a cool thing about being a memory coach. You always know how people live. So...
You enter your door, this is the first, and now if you want to memorize something new, let's make a very easy example, the shopping list. Classical example, but let's say you want to memorize five items. Or let's make it ten, because five is not so impressive. Let's make it ten. So first two items you want to buy, Chris. Up to you. We need some paper towels.
Paper towels? Paper towels and the second one? Let's see. We need some... We need tea. Chamomile tea. Okay. So the first are paper towels and tea. And now you connect these two items to your front door.
And you do that by creating an interesting, crazy story. So, for example, you come to your front door and there's a lot of tea all over the place. Maybe your daughter, I don't know, she did something with the tea on the front door. And you take your paper towels and you clean the door. Okay. Okay. First two, tea and paper towels. Next two items. What is it?
Let's see, what else do we need? Let's say we need some chicken. Chicken? And we need some sparkling water. Sparkling water. Okay. Next location on your journey is the little table with the books, right? Yep. Okay. So imagine on this table, you just close your eyes and try to visualize that there is a chicken. It can be a living chicken. I mean, you will not buy a living chicken, but there's a living chicken. What is the chicken doing? It's drinking sparkling water because it really likes sparkling water and says, hey, Chris,
This is a nice sparkling water. Please don't kill me. Something. And you try to imagine that on the table of your daughter's book table. And next location was, what was it? The sofa, right? Yep. Okay. Next two items. Let's see. We probably need some hot sauce and rice. Hot sauce and rice. You try to make a story with hot sauce, rice and your sofa.
And it can be as crazy as I want, right? It can be as crazy as you want. It can be silly, stupid, whatever. Yeah, so I'm imagining the sofa is covered in hot sauce and these little kernels of rice are jumping around like little people trying to avoid falling into and covering themselves in hot sauce. Nice. Nothing to add here. It's perfect. Okay, next is fireplace. What do you want to buy? Two more items? Okay.
I just did grocery, so I'm like, I don't need too many more. We need some lettuce and let's say we need some dish soap for washing the dishes. Okay. Connect that to the fireplace. Okay. This one's less easy. I'm imagining an old man washing lettuce with soap and then throwing it into the fire. So you have this soap water second thing, right? Yeah. There's like soap in the water and we're washing lettuce before we throw it in the fire.
As long as you don't buy an old man, then everything is fine. And then on the table, last one, let's say two from my side, you buy bananas and you buy some chocolate. So connect that to the dining table.
Yeah, I imagine just a chocolate fountain, just dipping the bananas in the chocolate fountain like fondue and eating them. It could be also your dining table is made out of chocolate. And you can't avoid biting into your table when you come home each and every time. So it's almost gone already. So chocolate and banana. And I'm pretty sure you can now call out all these 10 items. Try it.
That. Let's go with door. What was there? The door was paper towels and tea. And then we went to the table and there is a... Gosh, the chicken's telling me not to eat it. And the chicken... What is it doing?
I feel this is embarrassing. The chicken. Don't don't don't worry. It's it's it's it's drinking something. Oh, the sparkling water. Oh, the chicken's sprinkling. I feel like that was the one where you told the story. I should have told the story myself because the next one, it's like there's rice on the hot sauce. It's obvious. And then there's soap and lettuce and bananas and chocolate.
- Nice, nine out of 10, okay. But that's exactly what the point here. If I tell you the story, it might be good or it might be not so good, but in the end, it's about your own visualization. And then it's easy for you to memorize 10 items. It's also possible for 20 and 30 and even for 50 or more.
And you can do that forward, backwards, any way you want it. And that's such a cool technique, which not just works for shopping lists, of course, but actually for everything. And that's also how I memorize a deck, of course, with this memory palace method.
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Everyone who is in this competition uses the memory palace technique in one or more disciplines. I don't think there has ever been a world champion not using the memory palace. That's the key technique for everyone who starts with memory sports or memory training. So what you have here, what you need is journey through your apartment like you did it here and not just five locations, but even 10 or 20. And then you can imagine if you just...
This time we put two images on one location, but you can also put one on one location. Then you have just five items in five locations. Yeah, you have to try it for yourself. Visualize everything and then it works very well. Yeah, and you said these techniques have been around for a while. How old are they?
More than 2,000 years. Actually, the first one who has written something about it was a Roman poet. And he was writing it in his book, De Oda Tore, around 2,000 years ago. And he used that to give free speeches. So not free speeches, but speeches without notes. So he was talking without notes.
and memorizing all the stuff he has to memorize for his speech. And yeah, he described this technique in the first place, but I think it's older because I think it's just a natural thing to memorize things in locations. For example, let's say 10,000 years back, I am pretty sure that people memorized
where was the apple tree or where was the dangerous tiger living or something. So people are connecting things to locations since they can think. And what we do here is we're using this mental skill of the brain, which is there for other stuff. And we do it on purpose, not just accidentally.
Yeah. So what I think is interesting is a lot of sports, and I'm curious if memory is the same, you know, the time it takes someone to run a mile or run a hundred meter dash has kind of gotten better and better and better over time. Is the ability of the world champion, you know, two, three years ago, better than 20 years ago and has memory similarly evolved?
Yeah, definitely. I'm not sure if memory per se involved, but the results improved so much. So memorizing a deck of cards in under 30 seconds sounded crazy 15 years ago. No one could do it. And nowadays it's 12 seconds.
for a deck of cards. And so the scores and the results tripled or even more within the last 20 years. And it's still going on. And I'm really curious
where it will go in the end. But also, for example, the record for five minute numbers, memorizing numbers for five minutes was 333 15 years ago. Then it's 400. Now then it was 450. Now it's 560. So it's always a process of improving here. And that's pretty cool to see. Things are still evolving.
But what's interesting is the technique hasn't evolved, right? It's just people are faster, but are they still using the same technique they used 15 years ago? And if so, why do you think people are getting better? So there are two things, I guess. So on the one hand of technology,
Of course, people using the same techniques, the memory palace technique, but people have some variations. Like some people put one image on one location, two images like we did, or even three. So there are kind of variations, but that's not the reason why people are improving here. I think the main reason is that the bar is...
higher nowadays. 15 years ago, the bar was like 333 digits in five minutes. That was the holy grail. That was super cool. And you couldn't think that you can do it, but you trained very hard to get to that score. Nowadays, the bar is 560. So people start with the different
bit a different point to look forward to. So if you see 560 is possible, then you don't feel very good with 300 anymore. You try to reach farther in the first place already. And I think that's very important. Knowing what is possible
is a very important thing for people who start nowadays because I see so many young athletes starting today and or in half a year and in a year, they achieve results, which I trained 10 years for because they are aiming for different heights when they start memory sports. And that's the key here. There's someone who has already achieved that. So you say, I can do that.
Yeah, I think this is it reminds me of the Roger Bannister effect, which is, you know, the first person to break four minutes on the mile. And then it was something like the year after that. It's like almost everyone could do it. So that makes a lot of sense. So I have a few follow ups on the memory palace. You know, I went through this example with you. I feel like now I could definitely get it right, especially even the sparkling water. And I'll probably remember it in the morning as well.
But how does it work if you're doing multiple disciplines? Do you use the same memory palace? And what happens if you're recycling that memory palace five, six, seven times in a few days? Does it all get mixed up? Or do you have a way to wipe it clean so you can start over? Or it just seems like it would be difficult to do it a lot of different times.
Yeah, right. So the first thing is that for such a memory competition like a World Championship, I not have just one memory palace. You have now part of a memory palace with five locations, but you could easily do like 30 or 50 in your house, I guess. So I have not just five locations or 50, I have more than 2000 locations.
And that means a location is the door, a location is the table. So I have 30 in my apartment. I have 50 in my mother's apartment. I have 100 in the university. I have 150 in Japan in a hotel when I was there. I have some in San Diego. I have some in Bahrain. I have some in the UK. I have some in the supermarket around the corner. So I have...
memory palace all over the place. So that means that I can use fresh memory palaces in a memory competition all over the place. But you are right. Things are there then. So what happens in the next memory competition? And the trick is just not...
recalling or reviewing it. So if you not review your shopping list for the next two weeks, you will forget it anyway. If you review it every day, you will never forget it. But if you don't review it, you will forget it. And that's what I do. I try to not review stuff what I memorized in a memory competition, and then it's just gone at some point. And what I do in addition is I go through my memory palace
and like going through it in an empty way, like just thinking of the door, just thinking of the table, thinking of the sofa without thinking of the actual image, which I memorized. That also helps. So what technique are you using to kind of create, you know, let's take...
five minute numbers as an example, you're trying to remember a lot of numbers in a short period of time. How do you place those numbers? Do you come up with a letter for a number or an image for a number? How does it work? Yeah, actually, it's a letter for a digit. So the very basic example is the two. If you look at the two, it looks like a swan.
Yeah, look at the 2. It looks a bit like a swan. So a 2 could be a swan. But that's, of course, just a very basic example. What I do is I have a letter like, or a number like 3. And if I turn the 3 by 90 degrees, then it looks a little bit like an M.
M. Three is an M. And so if I have a three and another three, then I would try to find a word by adding vowels in the middle or to the end. So M and M, I would create the word mummy.
Or mom. So you have an M, you have a vowel, you have another M. So the vowels are joker. You can use them at every place here. And another example for the one is like a T. It looks a little bit like a T, the one. So you have T, one, and three M. What could you create out of 13? One, three. What image could you create with a T and an M? Try to make a word here.
Time. Time, yeah. And how would I imagine time? Like a clock, I would see a watch or a clock. Or a team would be also possible. So when I have to memorize the number 33, then I imagine my mommy standing in front of the door, my mom standing in front of the door. And on the table, there's a team fighting against each other. So 13, 33, 30. And that's what I do. So I transform time.
a two digit or even a three digit number in an image. And I put that image on my location. And yeah, what I did is really I created the system with 1000 images. So I have a fixed image for every three digit number. So if you name a three digit number, I probably can name you the image for that. Let's try 712.
In English, it's a guillotine. I'm not sure if that's the right word. So in France, in the 18th century, when you get killed, you have to be... How do you call it? Guillotine. Guillotine, yeah. Guillotine, exactly. That's 712, a guillotine. And that's because a seven... Is a seven a G? Yes. Yeah, it's a G. And the one is a T, and the two is an N. They have a guillotine.
Okay. It's a good example. So when you have a longer number that you have to memorize, is the process you go through, what's the first three numbers, convert it to this thing, which for you, because you have a database of 999 different numbers, you just immediately go guillotine, throw it in the first place of the memory palace. Next three, throw it in the second. Next three, throw it in the third.
Exactly. If you train that very hard and very often, you become faster and faster. So I can do 500 in five minutes, 500 digits in five minutes, which means like 167 transformations and putting it on a location.
And so for that, you'd be using kind of two different memory palaces going from one to the next. For that, if I have 167 images, I need a memory palace with 167 locations. Or if I have just one with 100, I start there. And the other 67, I go to another one. Yeah.
Or even I put two images on a location. So I have six digits on a location like we did here with two images. Then I spare some locations. I just need half of them. But that's the technical part. And similarly for cards, how does that work? Yeah, actually the same. I transform...
every card into an image. And actually what I do is I transform every possible combination of two cards into one image. So if you have two playing cards, there are 2,704 combinations possible. And I have a unique image for every of these combinations. And then I transform two cards into an image and put it on a location. 26 locations, done.
Okay. Okay. So that makes sense. I know one of the other disciplines that I didn't realize until I was kind of doing some research is on names. And, you know, names are something that, you know, I want to get to eventually after this about, you know, memorizing them. But how do you, you know, numbers, there's a finite set of them, cards, there's a finite set, but new names.
Is there truly a finite set where you kind of have all of them or are you using a different technique to kind of memorize random names in that discipline?
Yeah, so names is actually the discipline or not even a discipline, but also in daily life where most people or many people struggle. And in a competition, it's very hard because we have international names and there are Chinese names, Mongolian names and Russian names, a lot of different names from different countries. But and that's quite tough because you have to be very creative and try to find an image of
for a very, very unknown name for yourself. And this is actually not a finite set. There are unlimited names out there if you look on the international scale. But if you look just national names, look up national names, and you would check the 100 most...
used names in the US, then they repeat over and over again. And of course, there are names which are unique, but many names repeat. And if you haven't
unique image for every, let's say, the list of the 100 most familiar male names and female names. And like Chris is a Christian, someone who is a Christian, who is praying all the time. So imagine you, I would imagine you sitting here and praying before the interview because you want to do it right. You are Chris Christian. And you will meet a lot of Chris's in your life, so you can memorize that.
And if you have a list of that, the most familiar, most common names, that's what I'm searching for, then you have a huge advantage. Just try to create an image for the most common names and then, yeah, then you're ready to go. And if it's getting more difficult, you need to be more creative. Yeah.
Yeah, well, this is a perfect segue. So I'm impressed at how quickly I remembered the list minus the water, you know, and now that I think about it, I'm like, wow, I could very easily walk through tea, paper towels, duck, water, rice, hot sauce, lettuce, soap, bananas, chocolate, like it's so easy now. But when I think about things that could practically improve my work or, or my personal or professional life, you know, a list is something that's, you know,
pretty easy that I could just write down. Obviously, if I don't have to, that's great. And there are circumstances where I can't. But there are a lot of other things that I think, you know, are more practical things like remembering names at an event. So maybe I could start there and kind of push on a few techniques that might be helpful for the kinds of memory exercises or skills that would be really helpful in our personal and professional lives.
Yeah, and I guess names and faces is one of these things because let's say you're going into a new job to a new company and they have to meet like 30 new colleagues in the first day. How cool would it be if you would be able to memorize all these names on the first day? I mean, you really make a different impression then because
If you memorize all these names, then and you say, hey, Chris, hey, Andy, hey, Maria, nice to meet you. Then it's really a different story if you would do it like, hey, you with the red shirt. What was your name again? So that happens.
gives you a social skill, which is very, very nice to have. So the story here or the technique here is what I really talked about already. It's like creating an image for many common names, like Chris. Maria is also a Christian image, like the mother Maria, but having something else. Maybe you can name, you have a name on your mind, which I can give it.
- Yeah, I mean, it's funny you said Andy, which was actually the name of the first person I met at the company I work at. And so would you just come up with an image that is unique to that person or unique to the name? - To the name, because you connect the image to the name then. That's the second step. So can you think of an image if you think of the name Andy?
Yeah, what comes to mind for me is the Toy Story doll that has Andy written on the boot. Nice. Okay, now you have that doll.
And you need to connect that doll to the real Andy in your company. So try to find something. What is unique about this Andy in your company? Does he have the very big ears or always wearing nice shirts or a very deep voice? Something unique about that guy. What is it?
Yeah, I'm afraid he's going to be listening, so I have to be careful here. Yeah, maybe he has beautiful eyes or something. I feel like I've seen Andy wear a lot of sweaters. You know, he used to have longer hair. He's a little taller than most people. Okay, longer hair is a nice one. So you could try to imagine this little doll crawling through his hair.
So if you see him next time, I'm pretty sure you cannot avoid thinking of that. So this doll crawling through his hair. So you would imagine, ah, this is Andy, the doll here. And so this man's name is Andy. Of course, you now know Andy already, but that's how it works. So you try to find a unique feature.
on the person in the face or in the voice or whatever makes it this person unique and you connect your image from the name to that feature so if you when you need when you meet the person again you see the feature and there is the name connected to that feature actually a bit like the memory palace because in the memory pulse you connect
images to locations and here you put you connect images to special features and persons and that works pretty well so like Andy I would have been a gun with Andy and I would imagine I'm not sure if you have seen this movie man in the moon yep
And I would imagine Andy Kaufman standing on the shoulder of this Andy, maybe making up his hair. So that would be maybe my story. And it's a matter of training. If you do it just once, it's like, OK, I cannot if I meet five new people, how can I do that? I mean, I don't have the time. It's like a hello, hello, hello. And I am very occupied by you saying my own name five times.
But if you go into this situation and say, okay, I tried to memorize this name, then you just use the name. Hi, Andy, nice to meet you. And then you create your image afterwards. So you don't have to do it on spot, but be just more aware of memorizing names. That's the first step. And the second step is using these memory techniques.
Yeah, so it sounds like, you know, the advice I'd always heard is try to repeat the person's name a lot. And it sounds like that's a good technique for the short term, but it probably doesn't last forever. So you could use this to take that even further. Yes. And you use that for short term and then you take that name. And when you left the situation, you just make your image because that lasts forever.
way longer. So use that short-term memory, but then go with and create a story, create an image. And that works pretty well for that. And I mean, there's other stuff like talking without notes, going into important negotiation, for example. You want to talk about
six important points. And you don't want to look on your notes all over the place. You want to be present and you want to talk without notes. So you just memorize them. And even giving a longer speech is possible with these techniques because you put your keynotes
on your memory palace. So you're going again with your memory palace and it's helpful in so many situations, not even, not just in exams and it's obvious having that for school or your studies, but it's also helpful in daily life and in social situations where you have to
come up with important points and you may be very nervous. So you go into the job interview, you go into this negotiation by having all these keynotes in your head, in your memory palace, and you just have to walk through your memory palace being there in the job interview. Don't close your eyes too often. That works. That looks a bit strange. But if you're a bit trained to that, then you are able and capable of doing that just on spot without
without, yeah, without any problems anymore. Yeah, how did, so that was one that I actually had in my mind. I was like, wow, today I had, you know, eight or 10 questions that I wanted to make sure I brought up in this interview. I was like, wow, it'd be great if I could memorize them and not look at my notes. How do you do that with kind of more abstract concepts? So if I wanted to ask a question, you know, about can you recycle a memory palace
you know, I don't have a visual image like I did for a paper towel. Or if I knew that I wanted to remind someone in a job interview about my experience spending a summer, you know, at a farm and maybe the farm has a, has a better, a better visual memory. So maybe it's a, I just wanted to remind them that, you know, I, I, I'm really good at being punctual and on time and that kind of thing. When you, when you have these abstract things that aren't as visual, um,
Do you kind of convert them to objects or how do you memorize 10 points for a presentation?
So the first thing is when you think about giving a presentation, what you do, let's say it's 10 points. If you would write down notes, your notes would be awesome. Maybe one, two or three images, three words, maybe not more because one, two or three words will remind you of the rest. So what you actually have to memorize is not the sentence, but just the
a keynote, a keyword. And for example, this question about recycling memory palaces could be a recycle bin, could be just recycling something. So you imagine yourself standing at your door, recycling something there. And that word recycling would remind you of the rest or for even more abstract things like being on time that I would imagine that
myself. So I would create a memory palace with 10 locations. And when I want to talk about the farm and next I want to talk about being on time, on the first location I would memorize the farm. It's easy, just a farmer or a chicken, another chicken. And then the second location I would memorize being on time, would memorize myself staying there, sitting there, looking at my watch and pointing on my watch. Be on time. You have to be here. Maybe
telling that my girlfriend or someone else, you have to be here on time. It's like, imagine myself in this situation. And that is also an image. It's abstract, but it's an image. Being on time is a feeling. Trying to be, being late is a feeling. You feel bad, you feel stressed. It's a feeling. And I try to memorize that feeling. Being stressed on the couch, feeling I have to be on time while I'm sitting on the couch, something in that direction.
Yeah, it's not just an object you memorize. It's also everything that surrounds that object. It's not just the object itself. It's a feeling. It's a situation. It's the embarrassment of being not on time. That's what I memorize. Yeah.
Yeah, it reminds me of my rice and hot sauce example. Like the more visceral it is of the feeling of the rice is being burned in the hot sauce and the more kind of extreme it can be, maybe makes it more memorable. Exactly. And it doesn't have to be extreme every time, but it has to be something what works for you. So if extreme works for you, go with that. But if
more uh causal works for you go with that and if shiny works for you go with shiny and it's up to you yeah and does it work for things out of order so you know when if i'm trying to remember numbers like you are in your your you know your exercise for the competition it's like well yeah they have
to be written down in order. So that makes a lot of sense. But, you know, if I was in a job interview and I knew there were seven or eight things that I really wanted to convey, the conversation is often led by the other person. It might flow in a different path.
Is there some way to add a lack of order to memory? Or is it just every time I'm about to say something, I kind of run through the list start to finish again? I don't know if that makes sense. So let's say you have like eight things you want to talk about. And as you said, the conversation is running somewhere else. And then you think there was something left. Then...
If you're used to it, it's not difficult to go through your eight locations very fast, like in three or four seconds. Just look for, ah, I didn't talk about that. I want to talk about that. So you go through your list then. And I think that's the story here. Put it into the order on your memory palace. And if it's not too many, you just can go through it. And if it's many, you can also go through it and maybe takes a bit more time. But actually you can find what is missing.
That's always if we would have, if I would call out now like eight out of these 10 items, you would be able to check which are missing by just going through your locations and thinking about what did he never mentioned. And you would come up with that. And that works pretty good.
Yeah, it's funny. As you were answering this, I was thinking about the list we made earlier. And I was like, wow, I could go through that list so fast. So if anyone listening hasn't been trying to do this exercise on their own, I would strongly recommend maybe even pause, run through it yourself. And I'm just surprised at how easily that list comes together, despite that I missed one in the first time. But that's an experience you have now.
Right. You have the feeling, wow, it works. And you could go backwards, too. Doesn't matter. Forwards, backwards. And you need to make this experience. You need to do it by yourself because otherwise it's like, OK, he did that now, but I couldn't do it. But you will see it's so easy and it works so good. And you reviewed that so often now. I don't think that you will buy something else in the future anymore. Always the same items now. Yeah. Yeah.
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This has been so interesting. How do you exercise your brain for all this and practice? Is it just doing it over and over again, even if it's not part of something you actually need to memorize? Or are there types of things you do to train or practice to get better at memory? Yeah, I think that's also a very important question because if you want to do it for or use it for your daily life stuff, you can jump right in and try. But the best way
practice is to do training like you would do in memory sports. So I don't go to the gym, but I have my memory sports gym at home, memorizing for memory sports, a list of words each day or even 100 digits or something. So what I really do in my workout is memorizing random stuff, random words, random cards, random numbers, random names.
and do that every day, that's a good step because doing it every day on a daily basis or at least five times a week, that's the key. You can train once a month for three hours or you train daily and training daily will give you a better result. Like brushing your teeth, you wouldn't do it for two hours once a month, but daily and that's the best result.
Yeah. Are there are there other things that help with this besides memory, like mindfulness training with meditation or breath work or anything like that?
Definitely. I mean, everything what helps you, what usually helps you in being not that stressed or more relaxed, just more relaxed or more aware of what is around you helps you. So meditation is really a good thing to calm yourself down. And that's what I told you before. Before I start, I always have a one minute meditation to be more relaxed, to be in the memory mode.
And but actually memorizing for one hour is a meditation itself. Imagine that you I mean, you're in your memory palace. You're just seeing images. You're putting them on location in a rhythm in a specific rhythm again and again for one hour. It's kind of a.
huge meditation and you always feel that your thoughts are going somewhere else. You have to bring them back to the exercise and that's meditation, isn't it? So, but yeah, everything what helps you feeling better, being more relaxed, having a more mindful mind helps you also, of course, for being better at your memory skills.
Yeah. And do the benefits of all of this brain training, memory training translate to other skills like learning a language or anything like that? Yes. I mean, for learning a language, you could also use memory techniques. Learning vocabulary is... That's...
memory techniques is built for that somehow. So learning vocabulary, for example, the world record for kids, we're learning a list of vocabulary in five minutes is 70 words in five minutes, 70 words in five minutes. And so that's a side skill you have automatically if you train your memory. But also what I said before is creativity.
Imagine you create these stories all over the place. You become more creative. You see connections where you don't see them usually because you are telling stories, you're creative, you use your fantasy. So that's really also something what just happens on the site without really noticing it in the first place.
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm like, very excited to start applying a lot of these lessons. But I'm also curious for you, you do coaching. Have you turned memory sports into a career? And is this something that has become a profession for you? Do you win big prizes when you win championships? Or what's the state of memory as a profession?
Yeah, so memory sports is a profession as a profession. I mean, over the last 16 years, I won two world championships and a lot of competitions. And I think my overall earnings are like $50,000, which sounds good in the first place. But over 15 years,
you cannot make a living out of that. So prices are low. It's really under the radar. Not many people knowing about that. So sometimes you just get a nice sweet box as a price or something. It's also nice, but
getting chocolate doesn't help you paying your rent. So it's not about being on the top of the memory sports ladder here, but it's about giving the coaching. And I built my career on, of course, on my success in memory sports because that gives me the background. Being world champion is great.
And you know what you are talking about. And now since a couple of years, I'm building this coaching, helping people for daily life issues, helping students, helping kids, but also, of course, business coaching for managers who want to
manage their memory in a better way, memorizing all the clients or stuff like that. So that's really something where you can build, pay your rent from, but not because of memory sports. That's not possible. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned these events take place around the world. So over 16 years, I have to imagine you might have spent as much as you've won in flights. Yes, and I am on the top, right? So people not being in the top five,
have no chance to pay their bills just for the flights because there is no prize money left. The biggest prize money what I won once was $10,000 once and another time $8,000. So even these $50,000 are just seven or eight competitions.
Yeah, well, you could you could tell all of the people not winning to check out a few episodes about points and miles. Maybe they can learn to travel for free, which is a good segue into, you know, my last question, which is about other other things outside of memory. You've clearly been someone who's learned how to optimize and even hack their way to becoming kind of a world champion, not even kind of becoming a world champion twice.
Are there other aspects of your life where you've optimized things or you have unique tactics or routines that you use to upgrade the way you live? I tried a lot of things. One thing what I tried and which worked very well for quite a while was gamification of my life.
So like having my own coin system, point system. So I was putting everything into this app and I was getting points for checking my emails. I was getting points for making this call to the dentist. I was getting points for having this new client. So for all things in my life.
And then I rewarded myself. When I get collected 100 points, I get something. So that worked pretty well, actually. But at one point, I was just creating tasks for my points scale. And...
That was not going anywhere anymore. So I skipped that, but it was working for a while. And nowadays I'm using like cooperative management tools like what you use sometimes in companies. I use that for myself, for my different projects, because I have so many different projects. And it's good to have an overview about everything. So there's a big mind map included. I see everything clearly.
on one page, but everything is also splitted. So specific tasks for specific days, that's one thing what I can recommend. So if you have three projects, don't try to do all the project in one day, focus on one project each day. That also helps me. So yeah, managing my stuff and my things with these apps
There are plenty of them out there. This is really helpful for me and helps me to structure my life and my projects.
And are there specific apps that you like that people can try out? Yeah, of course. ClickUp is one of these apps. I'm not sure if you know that, but it's pretty nice. It's amazing. It connects your Google Calendar with your ClickUp and you have everything in one place and you can integrate Zoom and everything. So I'm not sponsored by that, but I can recommend it anyway. So ClickUp, if you hear me, please get in touch.
Yeah, that would be great. Are there apps or services online or videos that you think people should check out to practice memory or to learn more? For memory, Anki, A-N-K-I, is a very, very helpful app to learn your own stuff. You can put in your own stuff you want to learn and you can use this Anki method online.
which is actually a review method. Memorizing stuff is not just about memorizing it, but also about reviewing. And some stuff you have to review more often, something less. And this app helps you here. That's really cool. And of course, if you want to learn something about or want to check out Memory Sports, you can watch my Twitch channel where I usually do commentary.
on memory sports matches and that's a really cool thing it's a small channel still but yeah you will meet all the great memories people around the world on that channel and can recommend that
That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, that's the reason if you're watching the video, you'll see Johannes has a green screen and I'm sure that's what it's for. Any other places that people should find you online or learn about what you're working on? Yeah, so my Memory Sports TV is the name of my Twitch channel, but also my website, johannes-malo.com. You can get in touch with me and to learn something about it.
Yeah. So that's johannes-malo.com. Thanks. Just want to make sure you get it. But the links to all that's in the show notes. And just last quick question on coaching. Is that something you offer to anyone that people listening who want to improve memory and their work or their personal life can get in touch?
Yes, definitely get in touch. And then usually I have a talk with people because I really want to help them. And I want to figure out, can I help you or not? That's the most important part. But if I can help you, then everyone can get in touch with me and let's see what we can do. That sounds great. Thank you so much for being here. This was fantastic. Thank you, Chris, for inviting me. And yeah, it was a nice show. And I hope you will not forget your shopping list and maybe extend that for the next time.
I will do my best. Thank you. Thanks.
What a fantastic conversation. I'm even recording this outro three days later because I wanted to see if I still remembered the list. Paper towels, tea, chicken, sparkling water, rice, hot sauce, lettuce, soap, chocolate, bananas. Boom. And I haven't even practiced at all since our conversation. So these techniques really work. I hope that for everyone listening, you get similar success and you have fun practicing this. And with a little practice, I'm hoping I can get this whole system down even faster.
I'm going to be planning another Q&A episode soon. So please send over any questions you have for me or really any thoughts or feedback too. I'm Chris at allthehacks.com.
And it's Thanksgiving in the US tomorrow. So everyone out there who's subscribed to the show, who's written me an email, posted a review online, shared the show with friends or anything else to support me and all the hacks, thank you so much. I am so grateful for all of you and I'm so excited for everything we have coming down the road.
Finally, for those of you celebrating Thanksgiving, have a wonderful time. Hopefully you're getting to spend it with friends and family. That's it for this week. See you all next week.