Practical Ways To Improve Memory

January 15, 2010

Interview with Scott Hagwood, author of the book Memory Power: You Can Develop a Great Memory--America's Grand Master Shows You How

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Mike Carruthers:
Your memory is like a muscle and you can make it stronger.

Scott Hagwood:
You know it's not just if we don't use it we lose it, it's when we use it we truly get more out of it.
 

Scott Hagwood, author of the book Memory Power, says most of us have trouble remembering names, but with a little practice you can get remarkably good at it.

We may not realize it but we have a tremendous database for names. Even though I may not have ever seen Mike Carruthers in person, I have an idea because I know a lot of Mike's - I have a cousin Mike, I went to school with a couple of Mike's. So then when I meet you and when we're engaging and talking and whatever, I try and find as many correlations, as many associations, as many things that you have in common with people that I already know - really what I basically do is I turn you into an experience.

It's so important to understand, says Scott, that you'll always remember an experience better than a fact or a thought. So instead of simply trying to remember a fact out of a book, you'd do much better to remember the whole experience of finding the book, the color of the book and the weather outside when you read the book.

Because what you're trying to do is trying to create an experience because our memories in our brains are measured not by calendars, not by dates but they're marked by experiences. And when you want to remember something, turn it into an experience and it becomes as natural as remembering what you did yesterday.