Our speaker this week was Matt Goerke. Matt is a truly talented memory training specialist. He began by asking which one of us has trouble remembering and the response was almost universally negative. He went on to say that the bulk of memory difficulty is the belief that we cannot do it. It sounds simplistic, but as the session went on we could see where the training could substantially increase our ability to learn the techniques of memory retention.

The first exercise was to elicit a word from different people in the audience until he had 15 words. Each of us wrote down the words. He asked us to turn over the paper and write down all the words in the order that we first heard them. Not only were we not able to remember most of the words, those we did get were not in the correct order. By the end of the session all of the people could remember the words in the correct order and randomly as well.

When we were leaving we realized that the session went over the designated hour and no one seemed to realize the passing of the time, a fact that indicated that we were all so engaged in the thinking process.

Beyond the idea that remembering people and names, sources of technical information and processes are all essential to our business success, it is also fun. But perhaps more importantly was the fact that the mental stimulation was likely to keep us healthy. Memory training is apparently on par with learning a foreign language and other similar challenges. The pursuit of a better memory appears to be useful in maintaining a healthy outlook.

Ernie Fazio